


the best laid plans (mean falling in love with the wrong person)

by thelilacfield



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Class Differences, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:07:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24080320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: It’s all Pietro’s idea, really. “You marry the prince, he’s crowned king and you’re his queen. After enough time to convince the kingdom you’re madly in love with your handsome husband, we arrange a little accident for him. You leave with the money. We start a new life.”The ruin of the plan is the prince's genuine kindness. And her genuine feelings for him.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 6
Kudos: 55





	1. out in the cold so long

**A/N:** I've had this idea brewing since I think 2018, and my muse finally arrived to write it. And of course I went overboard and what was intended to be a oneshot is now split into two. The second half is not yet finished, but I will post as soon as it is, and while the inspiration is ripe I'll keep writing. Hope you all enjoy this offering - another royal AU!

**Warning:** references to the past death of a parent, abusive behaviour on the part of a sibling, references/threats of physical domestic abuse, manipulative behaviour, slut-shaming language. Pietro is _not_ a nice person in this fic, and he will not be redeemed. If you are a very big fan of the character, I would not recommend reading this portrayal.

* * *

It's all Pietro's idea, really. He's the one who sees the invitation in the hand of one of the rich young ladies in the village, who comes home filled with every detail of it, who swipes a card in the colour of icing swirling over the cakes in the bakery window the next time he's picking pockets to find enough coppers to get them through a week. She sits and stares at the invite, her ticket out of the rundown shack they call a home and towards the castle, and she looks up at him and says, "I can't possibly pass for anyone of high enough birth to be allowed an invite."

"It's an open invitation to any eligible woman, if you wash your hair and wear a nice dress no one will know any different," he says smugly, and she stares down at the invitation again, her throat constricting with nerves. "Don't you see what an amazing opportunity this is?!"

"An opportunity for what?" she asks quietly, and Pietro rolls his eyes at her, looking down his nose like she's the most idiotic child he's ever met.

"Look, the prince is seeking a bride," he says. "That huge eyesore of a castle is about to crown a king and he needs a queen. And if you go to that ball and play your cards right, it could be _you_!"

"Why would I want to be queen?" she asks, and Pietro lets loose a harsh sigh and moves closer to her.

"You marry the prince, he's crowned king and you're his queen," he says, and she nods in understanding. "Then you just hold on tight. After enough time to convince the kingdom you're madly in love with your handsome husband, we arrange a little accident for him. Then you leave with the money, claiming you're too heartbroken to stay in the castle. We start a new life."

"You make it sound so simple," she says, and he tugs the invitation from her hands, eyes gleaming with greed.

"Because it is," he says, a wicked smile curving across his face, and she curls nervous fingers into the tangled ends of her braids and dreads the thought of all the preparation that will go towards making her ready for this ball.

The night comes, and she waits in the shack for Pietro to deem her ready, trying not to fidget with her dress. It was a lucky find, a deep red with a bodice low-cut enough to draw the eye, her collarbones adorned by the simple gold necklace that her mother clung to even as all their other belongings were sold, and Pietro is still standing with her, pushing the pins in her hair further into her scalp to make sure the careful braiding won't slip. "You get him to choose you," he whispers. "Whatever it takes."

The castle is lit up warm with light to welcome the arrivals in, and Wanda follows a crowd of overexcited guests over the cobblestones and through the soaring door. Music swirls in the air, and she looks around at the crowds of people in brightly-coloured clothes, tugging self-consciously at her skirt. She doesn't belong here, among all these gilded people with their perfect smile, she's fooling herself to think Pietro's plan has any chance of working.

Lurking at the edges of the ball, searching for a glimpse of the prince, she idly wonders whether she'd even recognise him. She doesn't pay much attention to the affairs of the kingdom, not when she has no time between simply trying to exist in a world that has cast her aside. She knows enough to say that he's blonde, and she would guess that he'd be wearing a crown. Something to differentiate him from the sons of knights and nobles who are filling the room, dancing with beautiful women and talking loudly about jousts and journeys south.

"I didn't realise they'd be letting the _riff-raff_ in," comes a haughty voice, and Wanda whirls at the sound. There's a young woman holding court amongst a collection of both genders, her red hair piled up in intricate swirls and braids, silver dress like captured stars flowing around her figure, the skirt so large it's piled atop her crossed legs. And she meets Wanda's eyes and laughs before she says, "They really should have limited the invitation to eligible ladies of _noble_ birth."

"I have as much right to be here as any of you," Wanda snaps, smoothing her dress over her hips, the skirt brushing the ground around her feet. "I came with my invitation, just the same as you did."

"I know who you are," one of the other women sneers, her bright blonde hair held up with diamond pins, jewels that could pay for Wanda's food for a year relegated to simply holding up a strand of hair. "Your brother begs in the marketplace to feed you. You probably stole that dress. You're not fit to even look upon the prince."

Wanda opens her mouth to retort, to say something sharp and angry that will push back the tears stinging her eyes, but the gold-clothed band at the corner of the room strike up a sudden explosion of sound, and the young women all flurry around, straightening skirts and readjusting hair and pinning sweet smiles on their faces. She turns, and sees a young man scuttle shyly into the ballroom. A golden crown adorns his equally golden hair, he's dressed in deep blue, and she knows why a reverent hush falls over the room. This is their prince. The man all of the women who just insulted her want to enchant tonight. The man she must persuade to choose her. No matter the cost.

She dodges to one of the washrooms, a room so enormous that the whole of her and Pietro's shack could fit inside it. Looking in the mirror, for a moment she sees herself as she is, the girl dressed in rags trying to seduce her way to a higher standing. The girl who has lost everything, who lives her days desperately trying to coax plants from the dirt so she can have something to eat, the girl who had to give up all the hobbies that once made her happy when her father's merchant money ran out, the girl who has lived in the same ragged clothes for years, stitching them up in whatever thread she can find when they threaten to fall apart.

That girl does not deserve to be here. That girl should slink back out of the door, leave this dress to someone who will wear it better. Lie to her brother, tell him that the ball was a farce and a betrothal has already been arranged for the prince. That she stood no chance against women who could afford to drape themselves in silk and diamonds.

But then she straightens up. Why should she try to be like those women, who are only here for personal gain too. Someone has to be the prince's bride, and why shouldn't it be her. She's young, and pretty, and intelligent. She may be years out of practice, but she can play the piano, sing, paint, pursue the sort of pretty little talents a queen might. She can learn the ways of the kingdom, play the game just as well as anyone. It can be her. It has to be her.

Let her play the part of the seducer, if she must. She adjusts her dress, wincing before she pulls a small tear in the delicate fabric. Enough to make her breasts appear as if they might spill out of her gown at any moment, enough to make the men wish they will. She knows those leering looks from the streets, has seen them quelled again and again by Pietro's snarl. Tonight, she will bask in that attention, knowing no one will dare step in the prince's way. She pulls her hair down from the braids, letting it cascade in uneven curls around her shoulders. To make it look as though she's just rolled from a bed, to make the prince imagine her in _his_ bed, sighing and writhing in pleasure.

When she leaves the bathroom, her lips reddened and her hips swaying, she sees the prince surrounded by a cluster of women, all mere inches from rubbing themselves against him. Her lip curls at them, their blatancy, how they can sneer at her when they act like cats in heat around the merest hint of money, of power. She catches a nearby noble lazily staring at her, his gaze wholly on her chest, and pulls her shoulders back, praying that the fabric won't tear. It's one thing to pull a small rip to seduce, quite another to have her dress peel off her in the middle of a ballroom.

A server moves past, a young man who gawks at her, and she gives him a smile that makes the tray teeter in his hands. She takes up a glass of wine and moves towards the knot around the prince. The woman who insulted her is close to him, her dress gleaming in the candlelight, her smile sweet but her eyes calculating. Let her think she's winning. Wanda can be calculating too.

"Oh my _goodness_ , I'm _so_ sorry!" she cries as the dark red of the wine spreads its stain over the woman's shining skirts. She turns, her face contorted with rage, and Wanda masks her face into the picture of apologetic innocence. "I didn't _mean_ to! I'm just so _clumsy_ , oh goodness, let me help you!"

"You've done enough," the woman snarls, and storms away, followed by her twittering entourage.

Leaving Wanda with the prince, and the heavy lock of hair falling in his eyes. They're very blue, summer sky blue, and it doesn't take much effort for her to put a tremor into her voice when she says, "I really didn't mean to!"

"I know you didn't," he soothes, and she has to force the smile down at the sound of his voice. Soft, nervous, smoothly accented.

"I should go," she says, turning away from him. "You looked as if you were getting along well with her. I've ruined your night. I'm so _embarrassed_."

"No, no, stay." Triumph fills her, hot and buzzing in her chest, but she forces the surprised innocence into her face when she turns to look at the prince. Watches his gaze drop briefly to her chest before he pulls it back to her eyes. "Dance with me. Just one dance."

"Oh, I couldn't...I don't know how." She looks up at him, tucking a curl behind her ear and watching his eyes follow the movement of her hand. Pulling her shoulders back a little to show him, waiting for him to offer. If he tells her to leave, she'll do something. Perhaps even kiss him in front of this audience. She wants to hear that silver-clad girl's scream of rage when the riff-raff wins.

"Just follow my lead," the prince says, and his hand curves over her waist. His fingers long, his palm warm and gentle, and she curls her hand over his shoulder and lets him step her onto the dancefloor, the sweet slow music of lovers that fills the room like smoke. He smiles and says, "I'm Vision."

"Prince Vision?" she asks, lifting an eyebrow, and he smiles.

"Prince Victor of the Orbera Kingdom to many," he says, and lowers his voice as noble couples swirl past. "But to those I don't wish to be so formal with, Vision is enough." His eyes meet hers, and she admires his restraint in not looking at her breasts as the rip grows slightly with the movement. "And your name?"

"Wanda," she breathes. Not daring to raise her voice higher, to break the spell. "Just Wanda."

"No title?" he asks, and she shakes her head, her hair whispering over her shoulders. "Where do you hail from, my lady?"

"The village," she says. "My father...he was a merchant. But his ships went down in the Black Sea. We have no money now. He and my mother passed many years ago. My brother and I try to get by. I came upon the invitation by chance, spent money we do not have for this dress..." She lifts her gaze to look up at him from beneath her lashes and huskily says, "All for a chance to meet you, my lord."

"Oh, I...I am not worth that, Wanda," he says, and his hand curves further around her as the music speeds, to the small of her back. She takes the opportunity to move closer, plaster her body against his, feel the heat pouring from him, to watch him struggle to keep his eyes on her face. To hear the harsh breath he takes in before he says, "You must let me reimburse you."

"No, my lord, I must not," she says, and smiles. "The pleasure of your company far outweighs the cost of gold."

He laughs, and whispers, "Why have we never met before?" And she lets herself glow, lets herself smile, and plays another move.

The panic that fills his eyes when she slumps against him thrills her, even as she quietly, weakly says, "Oh, don't worry, my lord. Just a little...I feel a little faint, that's all. Haven't eaten much today...the excitement..." She swoons again, lets her eyelids flutter, and his grip on her tightens, the room stilling to look at them. "I'll be okay, my lord. Go back to your dancing."

"Let me take you to the gardens for some fresh air," he says, helping her upright, steadying her. Her heart sings with triumph, but she lowers her eyes demurely.

"My lord, I couldn't-"

"I insist," he says, and puts an arm around her waist to guide her through the crowd, waving away anyone who tries to approach. Even the broad-shouldered guards in his golden armour who steps close, but moves away as soon as his prince looks at him. Because he wants to be alone. With _her_.

She fakes another swoon in the gardens, the quiet blackness of a night studded with stars, and Vision lowers her quickly onto an intricate stone bench. There's the quiet music of a fountain behind them, roses surrounding them, and she leans against him when he sits down next to him, making her breathing uneven. "I'm so sorry," she says weakly. "To take you away from your party. I truly will be fine if you leave me."

"I'm a host, and one of my guests is close to fainting," he says. "I would never leave anyone in your situation alone." A heave of her chest, and concern shadows his handsome, naive face. "Would you like me to fetch a healer? Perhaps they will have some kind of tonic for you, something to give you the energy to make it home. I would hate to think of you swooning in your carriage."

"I have no carriage," she says to this poor, sweet boy. This boy so privileged he's never imagined a world where transport is not readily available. "My lord, I have not eaten today because I cannot afford food. A carriage is out of the question."

"Then how did you get here?" he asks, and she pulls up her skirts to show him her dusty feet.

"I walked," she says. "A long way."

"You _must_ borrow a carriage for your journey home," he says, so sweetly insistent. "It's not safe for you out there alone at night. Anything could happen to you."

"You are too kind to me, my lord," she says. She turns to press her breasts against him, to hear his breathing stutter, and lowers her voice to a seductive whisper to say, "Let me show you how grateful I am."

She lifts her head and kisses him, pulling his lower lip between hers, and after a moment of stillness he kisses her back. She's kissing a _prince_ , lifting his hand to curve it over her breast and feeling the hum of a groan against her mouth. She's reaching for his thigh, sliding her hand along the inseam of his pants until she can curve a hand over him, and he rasps out a moan, his hand squeezing her breast, and she arches deliberately into his touch. It sends real sparks through her, that clumsy, tentative caress, but she acts it up, opening her mouth eagerly beneath his. Tracing her tongue over his lips when he doesn't take the hint, and shifting closer, still rubbing him over his pants, thrilling at the feeling of him growing hard.

He whines when she breaks the kiss, then his eyes slowly open, glassy and unfocused. She keeps touching him, his hand falling away from her as she slinks to her knees, looking up at him. Giving him the full benefit of her cleavage, of her gold necklace resting in the dip between her breasts, her hair tousled with kissing and her lips swollen as her hand reaches for his button. "What are you doing?" he asks, frowning in an adorably confused way.

"Serving you, my lord," she whispers. Lets herself hesitate, withdraw her hand. "Unless you don't want this."

"You don't need to serve me," he rasps, and she can almost hear his heart pounding. "Just...come back up. Kiss me again."

"This," she unbuttons his pants, curves an eager hand around his erection, looks up at him and purrs, "is a lot more exciting than kissing." And she sinks her mouth around him.

He takes the edge of the stone bench in a white-knuckle grip, and she ignores the stone ground digging into her knees through the thin dress. Who cares about that when she has a prince's cock in her mouth, a prince's hand in her hair, a prince gasping out, " _Wanda_." She's heard her name gasped like that before, but by boys in the market with dirty faces and callused hands on her thighs, who would take her in stables and against walls and in narrow beds where they have to be quiet. She's never heard her name in that smooth accent, never glided her hands over such expensive fabrics, never had the sound of running water and the scent of blooming roses surrounding her in a moment like this.

When his hips start to jerk, when he starts to moan with every breath, she pulls off. Tucks him neatly back into his pants and stands up, smoothing her skirt and picking off a few scraps of gravel as he stares up at her, panting. His eyes are glazed, his face flushed, and she thrills to see him. "Are you leaving?" he asks, voice strained.

"I have a long walk ahead of me, my lord," she says sweetly. "And it's dark, and cold."

"You may take one of the carriages," he says, and reaches for her, taking her hand. "Stay. Stay a little longer."

"My lord," she says, lowering her eyes demurely before she breaks into a wicked grin, "I will finish that," she waves a hand to the obvious shape of his erection pushing against his pants, "when you marry me."

"But-"

She bends down and softly kisses him, giving him another eyeful of cleavage. "Goodnight, Vision," she whispers, and he blinks at her, still flushed and sprawled on the bench. It would be so easy to wrap herself around him and stay there for the night, take him apart until he promised her anything. "Sweet dreams."

She walks home along the road, the wind raising goosebumps on her skin beneath her dress, the taste of a prince still in her mouth. When she opens the door to the shack, small and dank and gloomy after the glowing opulence of the castle, she finds it empty. Pietro must be with one of the girls he smiles at in the alleys, and she has the room to herself. To peel her shoes from her aching, bleeding feet, boil water to soak them, and to unwrap herself from the beautiful dress, touching the tear in the fabric. She'll sew it up, make it perfect again. Something to remind her of this night.

Not that she'll need a reminder. She saw the look in Vision's eyes. She's going to be queen, whether the people in that castle like it or not.

There's no other way for her to think.

* * *

It's been a week. A week of watching the door, a week of listening for the sound of horse's hooves while she digs tiny potatoes out of the garden, a week of hoping for the next moment to be the one when a golden-haired prince sweeps into her life and changes it forever. Her thoughts are spinning around and around, every day making that night seem more like a dream. If it weren't for the dress she now keeps folded beneath her mattress and the healing blisters on her feet, she would think it never happened. That dancing with the prince, swooning into his arms, kissing him beneath the starlight, was all just the dream of a lonely, broken girl.

She's alone in the house so much of the time, Pietro out chasing some woman or some money. She doesn't know which, only knows that she sees the shadows building his face, the tamped flames in his eyes. The explosion is coming, and she has to brace for it, sitting on her bed with a yellowing book balanced on her crossed legs, following the story of a young princess who saved herself, who pulled herself from the tower and saved her prince from a dragon. Her mother wrote these stories down for her, years and years ago, fairytales where the princesses were the heroes of the moment. Marya wanted her daughter to grow up believing she could save herself, as the money ran out and their house had to be sold and all they clung to was memories.

Night is falling when Pietro storms into the shack, slamming the door behind him. Wanda shrinks back on her narrow bed, sensing his bad mood like a thundercloud hanging over him. She wishes herself into shadow, to fade into the background, but he turns his gaze on her and snaps, "Rumour says the prince has chosen a bride." His voice is cold when he says, low and dangerous, "And it's not you."

"Who?" she asks, silently hoping it isn't the silver-gowned girl, the one she poured wine onto. The spoiled rich girl rubbing herself all over the prince. It would just be too irritating if she won.

"Who gives a shit who!" Pietro snarls, and she reaches for her mother's necklace, curling a finger around the gold chain that still rests over her jutting collarbones. "How could you throw this chance away?!"

"I didn't throw it away!" she insists. "I went to the ball. I danced with him. I told him my name. If politics and posturing have made him choose a woman of noble birth there's nothing I can do to change that-"

"I told you to make him choose you by any means necessary!" he shouts, and she jerks back, still clutching the necklace. This tiny talisman of their mother, who was kind and gentle and made her believe she could be anything. "What, exactly, did you do to make him choose you?"

"I..." She can't tell her brother, the thought brings an ugly flush to her cheeks. "I have my ways."

"You should've done anything he asked you," Pietro says. " _Anything_. If you can spread your legs for poor boys in the marketplace you can damn well do it for a prince-"

"Don't _I_ get a say in who I spread my legs for?!" she snaps, and immediately regrets her tone when his face contorts in momentary white-hot rage. She has to make her voice soothing, quiet, when she says, "I gave him enough to want more. That was what I had to do."

"Well it clearly didn't work." Pietro sits down heavily in the chair, and looks at her with so much disgust in his gaze that something inside her curls up and dies. "What are you worth if you can't even get him to choose you with sex?"

"Pietro..." It used to make him stop, when she said his name like that. Threatened by tears, tremulous, a fragile breath. But now he looks away, and she can smell the whiskey on him, stares at her brother and barely knows him anymore. She clutches her necklace and stands up, willing her knees not to buckle. Willing her back to be straight as she leaves the shack and goes out to the garden, to the well, where she crumples to her knees in the dirt and sobs.

"Excuse me?" She looks up, and immediately reaches up a ragged sleeve to dry her eyes when she sees the young man looking at her, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. "I'm looking for the residence of Wanda Maximoff, and the nice lady who owns the bakery said this was it." His gaze flickers over her, as if trying to imagine her at that ball, the seduction artist in a red dress. "Are you her?"

"Yes," she says, and the youth sags in relief.

"Your Highness, I found her!" he calls, and Wanda goes into a flurry of adjusting her clothes and pinning a smile on her face when Vision appears. He's clothed in finery that looks so out of place in this poverty-stricken place, silver thread shot through his clothes, and she winces to be in a drab black dress that's been washed so many times it's more grey now. His eyes are as blue as she remembers, hair falling in his eyes, though he lacks a crown today.

She dips into a curtsey, ducking her head to hide her reddened eyes, and breathes, "My lord."

"There is no need for the formalities when I am in your home, Wanda," he says, and she thrills at that smooth accent. Looking at him now, she remembers him sprawled on that stone bench, flushed and panting and pleading with her to stay a little longer. To finish what she'd started. "We've been looking for you."

She casts her gaze down to his crotch, watches him twitch and blush, and smiles. "I hoped you would come, my lord," she says sweetly. "To what do I owe the _pleasure_?"

The door crashes open behind her, and Pietro is shouting, "You couldn't even _start_ preparing dinner-" before he trails into silence. She's slightly smug when she turns to look at her brother, stunned into silence by the appearance of the prince.

And she hopes she isn't imagining Vision's lips thinning before he says, "Your brother, I assume."

"Yes," she says, and there's acid sweetness wrapped around her words when she says, "Pietro, this is Prince Victor of the Orbera Kingdom. He's come here today to..." She casts her eyes up to the prince and says, "Why are you here, my lord?"

"Please drop the formalities, Wanda," he says, and there is something unreadable in his eyes. Then he reaches for his pocket and withdraws a silk handkerchief knotted around something small and circular, and she's not faking the high-pitched gasp that escapes her. "I have thought of you every night for this past week. We shared a beautiful night, and I cannot stop thinking about it. I will not let that be the only hours I spend with you."

He goes to one knee, right there in the dirt of her garden, and she presses a hand to her mouth. "I want to make you my queen," he says, and she's already nodding, already feeling her cheeks flush with joy and her eyes prickle with tears. "I don't care if this is foolish, if we barely know each other, I _know_ what my heart says. Wanda," he unknots the handkerchief and reveals the ring, a diamond so big her head spins, the kind of diamond her father might once have shipped, set into a band of whitest gold, "will you marry me?"

"My _lord_ ," she gasps, and only half of it is performance for the sake of the people watching. For the young man who is stunned, Pietro's gaze prickling the back of her neck, for the other people who came with Vision, all staring. "This is so unexpected...I..." She extends her hand, and blinks to force a tear to trace down her cheek. "Yes."

She doesn't know what this moment is supposed to look like next. A man just proposed to her, she doesn't love him, she's saying yes because her brother is glaring at the back of her head and she can't even think of saying no. The people who came from the castle, distinguishable by their glossy hair and perfect clothes, are all staring with wide eyes and thin mouths, and Vision is standing up, dirt clinging to his knees and the ring still in his hand. And he pulls her close and breathes, "Thank you." A kiss to her temple, and he adds, "Don't be bothered by the ring. I know it's ridiculous. You can choose anything you like more from the royal collection. It's yours now."

He's so close, and warm, and he smells of clean clothes and rolling meadows, and his hands are wide on the small of her back. She leans into him, that warmth, until they're interrupted by a cool, clipped accent saying, "Your Highness, what are we to do?" She looks up at one of the entourage, a man squinting at her. "You did not inform us of this...development."

"It's her choice," Vision says, and turns to her, taking her hands. "Wanda, it's your choice what you do next."

"I'd like to wear the ring," she says, sweet and teasing, and he flushes, disentangling it from the handkerchief and sliding it onto her left hand. It's heavy, too big and gaudy on her thin fingers, but she smiles at it. A talisman of what she's achieved, who she will be from now on. A future princess. A future _queen_.

"You can stay here," he says, and casts a look to the shack that even she can read as doubtful. "Or you can ride back to the castle with me. Tonight. There are a hundred rooms waiting for someone there. You would be closer for...for planning the wedding." He smiles slightly and says, " _Our_ wedding."

She thrills, and casts a sly look at the entourage before she reaches up to kiss him. Softly, of course, playing the blushing bride. The girl who can't believe her luck to have captured the prince's heart. "I want to come with you," she says softly. He smiles, and she kisses him again, feeling the way he tries to deepen the kiss, the clench of his fingers on her back. So he hasn't forgotten her promise. She lowers herself from her tiptoes with a rustle of her skirts and says, "I just want to bring a few things. Then there's no need to make the journey here again."

"Of course," Vision says, and he lifts her hand to his lips to kiss it, running a thumb over her newly-placed engagement ring.

She brushes past a silent Pietro into the shack, clutching a hand to her racing heart. It happened. She did it. There's a prince at her doorstep proposing marriage, she's wearing a ring from the royal collection, she's going to be the bride of a future king. And all of that from a dance and her mouth on him. She's going to get out of the shack, out of the village, up the slopes of the hill to the castle gates. She's on the inside now.

"I guess you aren't useless," comes the comment, Pietro slipping back through the door. She ignores him, continuing to wrap a threadbare bag around the two dresses and book she keeps under her mattress. Saying a silent farewell to the leaky roof, her little garden, the faded rug stretched across the floorboards. She's tried to call this place home for five years. The least she can do is bid it goodbye.

"I'll invite you to the wedding," she says, and hugs her scant few belongings to her chest.

Pietro catches her arm as she tries to leave, fingers squeezing tightly into her skin. "Don't you dare fuck this up for us," he says coldly, and she flinches. "You don't let him get tired of you. You let him do whatever degenerate shit he wants. You just make sure he marries you and you get hold of that title."

"Maybe you should be the one going after a prince and letting him do anything he wants to you," she snaps, and Pietro's eyes flash. His fingers squeeze harder and she grits her teeth. "Let go of me. You want someone to come in here looking for me?"

"You better have a wedding date set soon," he says, and the threat hangs over them. She knows the consequences of not doing what he wants. She has since their mother died and the darkness filled her brother's eyes.

"I'll send a messenger when I do," she says. "They'll be at my beck and call now. The prince's betrothed." She clings to the vicious satisfaction of it all. She did this. Pietro pushed her, but _she_ made Vision want her. He's here because of her, not him. She's the one at the golden gates, ready to step through into a glittering, gilded life.

She pushes the door open and breathes in, breathes out the stuffiness of the shack, the heaviness of Pietro being around. Vision is waiting, taking in her tiny bundle. "Is that all you want to bring?" he asks, and she nods. "The carriage is big enough for more-"

"It's all I have," she says, and his face falls, sympathy painting across his face. "A book my mother wrote for me, her wedding dress, and the dress I wore when we met." She lets him see a glimpse of the red silk, watches his lips part slightly in the memory, and takes his hand, kissing his cheek. "Can we go? I need time to get used to the castle. I never sleep well," she lets her voice get lower, smokier, seductive, " _alone_ in a new place."

"Of course, we can go now," he says, and takes her hand to help her into a carriage pulled by beautiful chestnut horses. The seat inside is plush, dark blue, and she curls herself onto it, self-conscious for a moment. She knows her hair is tangled, her dress is drab, and she looks out of place in this setting. But Vision climbs in next to her and puts a gentle arm around her, protective, and she curls up to him. His eager bride, thrilled at her luck, tucking herself into his side.

"I haven't forgotten my promise, my lord," she says silkily, sliding a hand over his thigh. He flushes and stares resolutely ahead, and she laughs and purrs, "You made the right choice."

"That's not the only reason I asked," he says, and she smiles, kissing his cheek. "And...that should remain between us, Wanda."

"I would never spread our private moments, my lord," she says, blinking up at him, the very picture of innocence. "I have also thought of nothing else since we parted." She lowers her voice as the carriage lurches into motion and breathes, "I might find it difficult to wait until our wedding night."

He blushes, and she smirks, resting her head against his shoulder and leaving her hand on his thigh. Admiring the shine of her engagement ring, that ridiculously enormous diamond weighing her hand down, and she looks down too. "That ring doesn't suit you at all," he says, and she laughs. "I'm sorry. I'll let you choose something else as soon as I can. Do you have any idea what you might like?"

"Something subtle," she says ruefully, and he smiles. "But if you want to show me off, this ring is perfect."

"It's not you," he insists softly, and something in her chest quivers. He's so unlike what she would expect a prince to be. "You looked beautiful in that red dress, and there are certainly rubies in the collection. We will try to find you something a little more subtle." He lifts her chin gently, presses a feather-light kiss to her lips and says, "The people should be looking at you. Not your ring."

She smiles and simpers, the pretty little bride. Silent and beautiful, someone to be envied. She'll play the role as long as she has to to keep him, to make him want her, keep him hanging on the knife's edge. Switching between this persona and the seductress who seemed to intrigue him at the ball. Innocence and promiscuity together in the same woman. Surely the fantasy of every man.

The carriage rolls smoothly through the castle gates, and she looks out at her new home. The towers soaring up against the sky, the sprawling colourful garden visible as the horses snort to a stop, the guards in their golden armour at every door. She can do nothing but stare, and Vision takes her hand and squeezes it gently. "Welcome home," he says softly, and she blinks away the strange, sudden tears that sting her eyes. He gets up first, opens the carriage door and helps her down the three small steps, and he puts a protective arm around her under the eyes of the guards. "Let's find you a room. Then we can go about organising the announcement of our engagement."

"Do I have to meet your parents?" she asks, and he laughs against her cheek. "They are my king and queen. Don't I have some right to be nervous?"

"You can take as much time as you need before you meet them," he says, and he's so sweet and soft that she wonders if she should regret what she's done. "You can choose a different ring to that thing. I'll show you around."

"My lord!" A man is looking at them from the doors, and Wanda doesn't miss the abject horror that crosses his face when he sees her. "Who is this young lady?"

"This is Wanda," Vision says, and there's a touchingly proud smile on his face, and she rustles her shabby skirts and gives the horrified man a sunny smile. "I proposed to her today."

"I said yes," she says sweetly, waving her beringed hand in the man's wide eyes. "It's lovely to meet you. Are you going to be helping organise our wedding?"

"Young lady, I am the advisor to the king, and one day I will be Victor's advisor," he says haughtily, and she just keeps the sweet smile pinned to her face, edged with a breath of superiority. "My lord, your parents aren't expecting this-"

"Then let me be the one to tell them," Vision says, a touch sharply. "I want to show my fiancée around the castle and find her a room. Do you like to watch the sunset, Wanda? The rooms in the West Wing are stunning."

"A word, then, my lord," the advisor says, and he sounds so angry beneath the surface, and he pulls Vision away into a shadowed alcove. Wanda feels naked without him near, vulnerable, suddenly surrounded by a people and a world she knows nothing about, and she clutches her tiny parcel of belongings to her chest as her talisman. She can hear snatches of the conversation, moments like, "This is highly irregular," and, "Your parents will not like this," and, "You are risking our trade relationship with other kingdoms." And, the worst, a cast of the advisor's eyes to her, her tangled hair lank around her shoulders and her faded, torn dress, and he says, "She will need to be cleaned up before she meets your parents."

When Vision comes back to her, he's pushing a hand through his hair, and the smile he gives her is a thin shadow of the smiles she's seen before. "Let me show you to your rooms," he says, offering her his arm. "You will have your own bathroom, and a view of the gardens, and anything else you may want. I want you to be comfortable here."

"And then will I have to meet your parents?" she asks, and he looks down at her hand, her dress, and she flinches. He must see what the advisor does. A poor girl, a girl who doesn't take care of herself, a girl who doesn't belong in this world of embroidered jackets and jewel-bright gowns.

"I will send a handmaid with some new choices for your ring," he says. "And some dresses you can choose from. She'll help you bathe."

"Don't you want to do that, my lord?" she asks innocently, looking up at him from beneath her lashes, and he flushes. "Don't we get a moment of alone time today? We just became engaged."

"You'll soon learn, Wanda, that being royal means much of your time is spent around people," he says, and dips his head to kiss her forehead. "I will show you around after you've been introduced to my parents. That will be our best chance to be alone today, I'm afraid."

"Then I will eagerly meet them," she says, and pulls him down into a real kiss. A performative one at that, her hand twisted into his hair, her body arching into his, and the narrowed eyes of the people around them when she pulls away. "I cannot wait to be alone with you, my lord."

"Wanda, you're my future bride," he says, and lifts her hand to kiss her palm, his lips soft and full and sending a shiver through her. "There is no need for titles between us. Please, just call me Vision."

He guides her up a set of spiralling stone steps, and her head is buzzing as they move, his words washing over her like white noise. This is her life now, these stone walls hung with beautiful tapestries, this richly-coloured carpet, the servants sneaking curious glances at her as she passes. The room Vision shows her into is at least twice the size of the shack, an enormous four-poster bed draped in silk curtains taking up so much space yet still leaving room for more. "I hope you'll be happy here," he says. "It would be...frowned upon for you to share in my space before we're married."

"How traditional," she says. "There is no such compunction for tradition in the village." She wonders if he'll understand what she's implying, if somehow her not being a virgin means he cannot marry her, if he'll throw her back out onto the streets to trail home to Pietro's sharp words and heavy fists. But he just smiles benignly, and she relaxes. Her double meaning must have flown straight over his handsome head.

"I will send a handmaiden here to help," he says. "Please, make yourself at home. Have a look around. I will go and tell my parents that you're eager to meet them."

When the door clicks shut behind him, she lays her belongings on the bed, lovingly smoothing out the skirts of her mother's wedding dress. The blankets are somehow more ornate than the dress, a simple affair adorned with only a little lace, and tears prick her eyes when she runs her hands over the material. Her mother wore this, the skirt widened by a seamstress to skim over the hidden bump that led to the wedding happening so fast, and now Wanda is facing her own wedding. Her mother left her this dress and little else, and she has ascended to the upper echelons of society in a split-second decision. Society her parents were never allowed access to.

She starts when the door swings open again and a young woman scuttles in, head bowed. She moves through Wanda's room like a ghost, drawing water for a bath and then narrowing her eyes at her. "I've been sent to clean you up," she says, and her gaze lingers on Wanda's hair, her hands, her ragged dress. "Get in. Take the ring off first."

It's insane, the way she's primped and preened like a doll. This stranger watches her undress and stumble as quickly as she can into the bath, scrubbing violently at her scalp and the rings of dirt around her nails, the water so hot it leaves a flush layered across her skin. She's tugged from the water and roughly dried off, feeling like this servant is sizing her up as she laces a corset so tightly that an involuntary squeal escapes her lips. Her hair is tightly braided and coiled into an intricate style dotted with ruby pins, a red dress pulled around her fitted close to her waist and her chest spilling into a long straight skirt, and when she's finally allowed to look at herself she barely recognises the girl in the mirror.

Her skin is softly flushed and glowing. The girl in the mirror's green eyes are shiny and hopeful, her dark hair pulled up in a swirling style with ruby pins gleaming amongst the twists, her skin flawless and marble pale against the scarlet of her dress. Corset boning draws her waist narrow and her breasts high, her mother's gold necklace resting over the square neckline of her bodice, and she admires herself for a moment. "My lady," the servant girl says, and opens the polished dark lid of a wooden box, "the prince sent these over. You may choose your own ring, and we are to return that diamond to the collection."

She lingers over the jewels, hardly daring the breathe. Her fingers itch with the knowledge that she could just take the box and leave, that selling these would provide more than enough money to get away. But she pushes that train of thought away - she has designs on a much bigger fortune. The first ring to catch her eyes reminds her of the family ring that had to be sold when her father's ship sank, a braided gold band set with a subtle ruby. It's pretty, and she plucks it from its velvet cushion to slide it onto her finger.

"Excellent choice, my lady," the servant girl says, and gives her a slow once-over. "You truly look like a princess."

"I am a princess," she says, and the servant girl arches an eyebrow.

"Not until you marry him."

* * *

Rain drives against the roof of the castle as Wanda allows a handmaiden to pull at her hair, listening to her tutting with another servant. Apparently for a royal wedding it takes two sets of hands to prepare the bride. "Rain on a wedding day," the handmaiden says, and the servant laughs softly. "It's a bad omen. The king won't like it."

"It rained on my parents' wedding day, and they had a blissfully happy marriage," Wanda says, soft and sharp, and the servants both snap their mouths closed. They continue to primp and preen her, blushing her cheeks delicately, studding her hair with diamonds, until she's itching with the urge to tell them to leave her alone, that she is not some doll to be preserved. They cannot control her, make her the pretty prim princess they want. She will only pretend to be that for Vision - the rest of the castle gets her, true and honest.

Her mother's wedding dress is an act of defiance. The seamstress brought to the castle measured her and presented her with frothy confections of dresses, and she eschewed every one. The simple white of her mother's dress is perfect, a sharp contrast to her ornate hairstyle, and she traces her fingers lovingly over the simple lace adornment. She's clung to the gold necklace, it still hangs around her neck, and while she must wear a tiara Vision allowed her to choose her own. It matches her ring, delicate, the rubies small and many rather than huge and garish, and she turns with a swirl of her skirts and leaves her dressing room, ready for the ceremony.

Hundreds of important people are occupying the castle, ready to watch the prince married. She pays them no heed, ignoring the way brows furrow when they see her, the whispers that trail behind her every step. Let them believe what they want, let them say Vision made a mistake choosing her, let them spread wicked rumours that she's pregnant and he's forced to marry her to protect his reputation. She is still the one walking up the aisle to a golden-haired prince, looking up at the smile on his face when he takes her hands.

He's so innocent. Vision smiles into her eyes as the priest talks, his thumb running reassuringly over the back of her hand. He doesn't notice the stony faces of his parents, the gossiping servants, the terrible weather of the day that sends chills skittering through the hall. Candlelight reflects in the blue of his eyes, dancing over the embroidery on his dark clothes, and he squeezes her hands gently when the priest asks, "Do you, Your Royal Highness, take this young lady to be your wife?"

"I do," he says softly, and she smiles up at him, sweet and simpering. The lucky one to capture the prince's heart, to be plucked from poverty like a ripened berry, to be drawn into this heady world of jewels and colour.

"And do you take His Royal Highness to be your husband?" the priest asks her, and she squeezes Vision's hands in return and smiles up at him.

"I do," she breathes reverently, and the prince smiles at her. Victory dances tantalisingly within reach, she can taste it.

"Then I do declare you bonded for life," the priest says, and she waits for no cue before she reaches up and presses her mouth to Vision's. Their hands are sweetly tangled, and the kingdom must sigh to see this fairytale ending.

But when she breaks the kiss she moves her lips to his ear and hotly whispers, "Thank you for upholding your end of the bargain, my lord. I'll be sure to keep my promise as soon as I can." She draws away and smugly notes the flush in his face, the fast pace of his steps back up the aisle with his warm hand wrapped around hers.

As the celebration begins, tables groaning with rich food and servants moving around in plain uniforms serving sparkling glasses of drink, she stands near her new husband and looks around the room. Searching for somewhere they can be alone, somewhere where she can make good on her promise to Vision, complete their trade. He married her, and it only serves that she should finish what she started on that star-studded night.

His laugh breaks her thoughts, and she smiles serenely when he puts an arm around her, playing at the blushing bride, fitting herself to his side and blushing prettily at the attention. "At least she's pretty, don't you think?" one of the men crowded around them says, and she ducks her head in a gesture they'll interpret as bashful. Truly, it's to stop herself from snapping at the remark. "She'll make lovely heirs, I'm sure."

Vision laughs, but it doesn't ring true, and she knows the tricks that have worked before. She clutches at him, lets her eyelids flutter, and softly says, "My lord, I...all the excitement, I feel a little faint. So many people..." She leans harder into him, letting him take her weight, and he clings to her, holding her tight to him.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," he says, and sweeps her out of the room, to a corridor cold but mercifully empty, lowering her onto a bench and kneeling down in front of her, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear and smiling at her with such sweet warmth that her heart quivers in her chest. "Are you feeling alright? We can take a walk around the gardens, that party will not miss us."

She catches sight of a small door set discreetly into the wall, obviously some sort of storage for the servants. They are all engaged in the party, and she gives her new husband a silken smile and takes his hand, drawing him through the door and into gloom with her. "I don't feel faint at all," she says softly, so close that she can feel his breath on her lips. "I just wanted time alone with you, my lord."

"Wanda, we're married now, there's no need for titles, you are a lady as much as I am a lord-"

"My _lord_ ," she breathes, low and sensual, and she hears him gulp in the silence. She fits her hand to his cheek, the skin smooth and soft beneath her fingers, and slowly leans up to kiss him. This is not the kind of kiss for polite company, it's passionate and hard and she nips his lower lip to hear him groan, the sound of it sending a frisson of triumph through her. When she pulls back, he lets out a soft sound of disappointment, and she presses a finger to his lips and whispers, "Let me keep my promise to you."

" _Now_?" he hisses, scandalised, and she laughs, kissing his lips again and making her way down to his neck, listening to his sighs. " _Wanda_ , I...we can go somewhere lovelier than this-"

"I want you _now_ ," she whispers, and he groans, she can feel him searching for her lips for a kiss. Her hand slides down his chest and beneath his waistband, and he whispers her name, slumping back against the wall of the narrow room. "Let me do this, my lord. I only want to please you."

"I...I had plans," he says faintly, but his protests are weak. Even weaker when she lowers herself to her knees, tucking up the skirt of her wedding dress to keep it from dust and creasing and takes him in her mouth. Then the protests stop completely.

She's not sure what to expect of him when night falls and they are left alone as newly-weds. There's never been a rumour to touch the village of him having any dalliances, but that doesn't mean he never did. Perhaps he's had other women, or perhaps she is the first. He'll be clumsy, too rough, like every other man she's ever allowed beneath her skirts. She can take this, have this on her terms, make him shake above her, his nails scratching the wall he's propped up against.

He breathes her name in a rush, and a smug thrill overtakes her, encourages her to suck him harder, and he swears under his breath at the change. She knows how to do this, has been on her knees before, but never for a prince. Never with so much hanging on the brink of it, and she shows him every trick she's ever learned. Doesn't stop his hips from moving, doesn't stop him from lowering a hand to the back of her head and pressing so gently, doesn't try to quiet the spill of sound from his lips. She thrills every time this prince, this future king, groans her name.

She gets little warning before he comes, just a choked out fragment of her name, and she swallows and gets gracefully back to her feet, smoothing her dress. He's panting, and his hands are reaching for her, drawing her into a slow kiss. She lets him, and when he breaks away his voice is still unsteady when he says, "You...you didn't have to."

"I promised I would finish that if you married me," she says, and wipes her mouth smugly. "Consider our bargain fulfilled, my lord."

Vision is left panting and flustered in that narrow room, and she returns to the party, with no one the wiser that she sucked her new husband off in a storage cupboard. She takes a glass of sparkling liquor to disguise the taste of him in her mouth, and replays those sounds he made, those gasps of her name. Men have said it before, but no one will ever erase that she made a prince come with her lips and her tongue.

"Congratulations, sister." The cool voice sends foreboding skittering through her, and she turns slowly to see Pietro. His clothes are ragged, such a stark contrast to the opulence of every other guest, and he takes her in slowly, eyes flashing with something that scares her. "Where is your husband?"

"Indisposed," she says, and he arches an eyebrow. "Are you enjoying the party?"

"I don't belong here," he says, and stares her down. "Neither do you. You better not let me down, do you understand?"

"He married me, didn't he?" she snaps, and Pietro reaches for her, fingers closing around her wrist. "Let me _go_. I have guards at my disposal now, you wouldn't dare hurt me."

"They don't trust you as far as they can throw you," he snarls, quiet enough that no one will hear them. "I hear what they say. You're just a little tramp who seduced the prince to get out of her poverty-stricken, tragic existence. You're _nothing_."

"He wants me," she says, and Pietro's grip tightens on her wrist until it hurts. "I'll get him to fall so hard he won't suspect a thing. I'll get the money. We'll get out of here."

"You better," he snaps, and she's afraid of him again, back in the shack smelling whiskey on his breath and fighting not to provoke him. "Because if you don't-"

"Is he bothering you, darling?" Vision's voice is welcome, and she pins a pretty smile on her face for her husband. Pietro lets go of her, his fingers leaving a pale band around her wrist, and walks away. Vision puts an arm around her, kisses the top of her head, and asks, "What did he want?"

"Oh, just a talk between siblings on the sister's wedding day," she says airily. Vision is quiet, and she turns in his arms to dazzle him with a smile. "Why did you leave that room? Didn't you think I'd be back for more?"

"My quarters await, Wanda," he says, and something rushes through her, equal parts excitement and fear. "When this circus is over, we can be alone. We can have a chance to talk without listening ears."

"Then we will _talk_ all we want, my lord," she says, and happily watches the tips of his ears turn red. She leans into her new husband's side, her eyes drawn curiously to the gold of his wedding ring, the band carved with symbols she can only assume have some significance to the kingdom, and lets him bear her away into the party.

When finally night falls, sweeping its cloak across the castle, the guests slowly disperse. The bride, pretty and primped and perfect, she watches the carriages roll away through the gates, the drivers returning from servants' quarters to take their lords and ladies home. Their laughter, haughty and elegant and brash, still echoes in the beams of the hall while she stands at the centre of silence, looking around at the end of her wedding day. Servants have already begun dutifully stacking dishes and carrying wine goblets back to the kitchen for cleaning, and she wonders how late they will be awake washing away the mess of this day.

Candles drip with thick droplets of wax as they're blown out, the musicians packing their belongings in velvet-lined cases, and she leans against a chair and watches Vision. Her husband is helping the servants, the last royal left standing after the king and queen retired to their chambers hours ago. He still looks the perfect part, hair perfect and smile pinned on. When he does detach himself from the people who helped to make the day, he takes the last bottle of sparkling alcohol from the table and two clean flutes, and smiles down into her eyes when he reaches her. "Shall we retire?" he asks softly, and seduction silks into the smile she gives him.

"I've been waiting all evening for that, my lord," she says, and he flushes, colour caught in the cut of his cheekbones. His hand is shaking when he reaches for hers, and she lets him be the one to lead, guiding her away from the ballroom and up the sloping stone staircases. Her heart flutters and her stomach clenches with nerves, but she pushes it away. She's done this before, let men lie her down and do as they please, and she can do it again. For a prince, for a future beyond dirty floors and a leaking roof and her vegetable garden torn up by rain, she'll do it.

Vision's chambers are just as opulent as she would expect the crown prince's to be. His bed is inexplicably even larger than hers, hung with navy blue curtains and scattered with velvet pillows. Her interest is piqued by the bookshelves that line one wall, heaving with leather-bound tomes in a rainbow of colours. The stone floors are cold through the thin soles of her shoes, and Vision lets go of her hand to rush across the room and light a fire. She watches the tiny flame take to the kindling and leap through the logs, floundering in the silence.

She occupies herself in removing the jewelled pins from her hair while he pours them glasses of liquor, fingers running through the extravagant braids to let her hair fall loose and wavy around her shoulders. Her husband picks up their flutes between long fingers, then looks to her and hesitates. "Are you tired?" he asks, eyes darting and shoulders hunched. "We can simply go to sleep. I know it's a long day, with all the pomp and ceremony-"

"Are you too tired to handle me, my lord?" she asks, in that smoky seductive tone she lets creep over her words when they're alone, and he looks away from her in silence. "If you wish to sleep, I won't stop you." She removes her tiara, setting it aside, and slips out of her shoes, bare feet on the colourful rug spread out at the foot of the bed when she moves towards him. She fastens her arms around his neck, reaches up to brush a kiss to his lips, and whispers, "But I am a bride on her wedding night. I would like to experience all that my _husband_ has to offer."

"Shall we have a drink first?" he asks, all bluster and nerves, his hands shaking and a flush rising up his neck.

"Drinks are for after, my lord," she breathes, and he shudders when her breath touches his lips. "Please. Take me to bed. Show me what could have been if I'd stayed a little longer at your ball."

"Wanda-" And she swallows whatever his words were going to be with her kiss, his arms wrapping around her. It's a delicate balance to find, letting him lead her while displaying the seductress that seemed to so enchant him, and she's glad when he takes her hand to the buttons of his shirt and lets her tug at the tiny buttons.

He's long and lean beneath his clothes, skin tanned to a soft gold from time spent outside in the idle pursuits of the rich, horseback riding and swimming and luxuriating in the colourful gardens. Well-fed and sleek, and she drinks him in, revelling in the gasps he lets out when she runs her hands down his chest. "I can't believe I'm married to you," she says, soft wonderment, the shiny-eyed girl from the village plucked like ripe fruit from poverty.

"Believe it," he says softly, and two fingers gently lift her chin. He pulls a pin she missed from her hair, hand brushing her cheek so carefully, and says, "I chose you. I wanted you. You are my wife. No one can take that away from us."

She doesn't know who he's trying to reassure, when she is the one skating on thin ice, when a single mistake could tip the scales she's balancing her story on and send her spiralling back to the dingy house and Pietro's anger. But when she kisses her husband again she pushes all thoughts of that away, curving her body into his, a moth seeking a flame. She kisses his cheek, his chin, his neck, and his fingertips bite into her skin through the thin wedding dress. Mouth over his fluttering pulse, she asks, "Am I to assume that I am your first, my lord?"

"I'm royal," he says. "There are certain...standards that I am expected to uphold."

"That's quite the roundabout way of saying yes," she says, and he laughs slightly. It breaks a little of the tension, the heady sensuality, and when she looks up at him she finds herself confessing, "You are not my first."

"I expected as much," he says. "You will find no shame for that from me, Wanda. I knew I was not marrying a noble. Most nobles don't even live up to our expectations." He shifts, his arms tightening around her, and quietly says, "But I did. I had never...never even kissed a woman until you."

"That does explain the enthusiasm of your response," she says, and watches the blush colour his face with a thrill going through her. "Alright, my lord. Show me what you've saved yourself for." His eyes follow her hands, mesmerised, as she unwinds the simple sash from around her waist, reaches for the line of buttons and bares herself to him. The cotton and lace pools around her feet, and she watches his gaze drop, running over her so keenly she can feel his eyes like fire on her skin. She winds herself around him, presses her lips to the shell of his ear, and drops her voice to the filthiest tone she can find to breathe, " _Fuck me_."

It ignites some fire in him, something she's seen in other men. It has her on her back on that fancy bed, his lips at her jaw, her neck, his hands on either side of her shoulder propping him over her. She's been here before, a man over her, hot lips on her skin, and she knows the ways to writhe, to let her breath stutter, to make high-pitched noises and encourage it to be over faster.

But he moves down her body, kisses trailed between her breasts, and she looks up at him, blinking at the sight of her husband's golden head above her stomach. "What are you doing?"

"I've never...been intimate before," he says softly, lifting his head and resting his chin on her stomach, eyes bright and happy. "But I've read about it. I wanted to be...prepared for my marriage." Another kiss on her stomach, ranging even lower, and he says, "I read that it will be less painful if you...reach completion first."

"I'm no blushing virgin who'll bleed on her wedding night," she says, and he chuckles against her skin.

"But I am a blushing virgin," he says. "And I want to do this." Then his head is between her parted thighs, and her head falls back on the pillows with a genuine gasp of pleasure.

There's lips and tongue between her legs, and her fingers curling into the sheets and tugging. No man has ever done this before - she's found pleasure in sex, yes, but not like this. Not with a man focusing so completely on her finding pleasure before him, and the sounds her husband is making seem to indicate that he enjoys this too. There's smugness to his grin when she finds the edge and falls beneath his ministrations, and she yanks him back up the bed and into a kiss that's more tongue and teeth and gasps.

"So do princes like you learn any other tricks from books?" she asks when they part, her voice raspy and her head still spinning, and he smiles.

"I learned that it can be more pleasurable for a woman," he says, and he's moving, rolling onto his back and drawing her on top of him, spread beneath her and _beaming_ , "if she is on top."

"I might need a moment," she says breathlessly, and he just smiles. A hand reaches up to stroke her hair, such a tender gesture, and she leans down to kiss him, cradling his face between her hands and letting her hair fall over them, a veil from the outside world.

When he is inside her, there's a moment where they just stare at each other. A moment of broken barriers, an open perfect second, before he gasps her name and reaches to grip her hips. Every jerk of her hips makes him gasp, and soon her name is being whispered like a prayer, over and over again, and she's looking down at him. Her husband. A prince. And he's at her mercy, clutching tightly onto her, his face flushed and his hair falling in his screwed-shut eyes, the colour spilling from his cheeks down his neck and chest, pleading for her to keep going.

It's nothing like she expected, and everything all at once. When she faked a fainting spell and dropped to her knees in the dirt outside the castle to suck his cock, to make him want her, she never truly expected to be in his bed. To be crying out at the way he makes her feel, the fire he has burning in her, head thrown back and nails scraping white lines down his chest when she loses herself again.

She makes a prince come for the second time in a single day, and collapses off him onto the bed, panting. She's sticky and sweaty and he still stares at her like she's the second coming of some divine being, reaching across the gap between their bodies to smooth hair out of her damp face. " _Wow_ ," he finally breathes, and she giggles, giddy and spinning and lost for a moment.

"I seem to have rendered you speechless," she says, and he ducks his face into the pillow. "Bashful, my lord? I've already seen you naked and calling my name, there's nothing left to hide." Then he looks at her, his face bright, his eyes shining.

"You were worth waiting for," he says, and something about the phrasing resonates in her chest. Not that, not the sex they had, not the entwined bodies and sharp thrusts of hip and messy wanting kisses. _Her_.

While she is caught in turmoil, in the sudden realisation that everything has come to fruition and she may have bitten off more than she can chew, he pulls her into his arms, her head pillowed on his chest. "We'll have to clean up before sleep," he says softly, and she feels him press a kiss to the top of her head. Tender. More than she deserves. "But I would like to hold you first." His hand runs down the length of her bare back, coming to rest where it feels like he's cradling her. "Wanda?"

"I would like to lay here a while," she says softly, and lifts her head to meet his gaze. "Vision." His name tastes sweet and good and right in her mouth, and he smiles and pulls her into one gentle kiss before laying her down again.

She curls close to him, his chest rising and falling below her cheek and the thunder of his heart echoing through her. The fire crackles the music in the background, and when she curls a hand against his hip she lets herself think, for just a moment, that everything can stay like this.


	2. suddenly there's sunlight all around me

**A/N:** Second half in record time! Hope everyone enjoys the conclusion, please leave a comment to let me know if you do. I'm on tumblr and twitter @ **mximoffromanoff** if anyone wants to chat!

 **Warning:** references to the past death of a parent, abusive behaviour on the part of a sibling, references to/threats of physical domestic abuse, manipulative behaviour, slut-shaming language. Spoiler warnings in the end notes.

* * *

The change in the weather hits the castle differently to the way it hits the village. Winter is fast approaching, autumn colouring the leaves and chilling the air, and she watches it all from the windows of the castle, heavy dresses protecting her from the cold. In the shack, she would be trying to draw water from a fast-freezing pump, hoping that the cold wouldn't kill her vegetable garden, scavenging waste from the bakery and curling in tight on herself every night, sleeplessly shivering.

In the castle, there is no such thing as cold. Fires are stoked and she only needs to shiver once in the presence of a servant before they're offering to draw her a hot bath. Frost spirals in pretty patterns across the windows and the grounds turn golden and the ponds are webbed with ice. She can appreciate the beauty of the seasons, rather than being afraid of what the cold might take from her this year. She shares Vision's quarters now, and if she complains of being cold he'll draw her into his arms and kiss her warm again, until her clothes are on the floor and he's calling her name beneath her.

They've been married for two months as quickly as she can blink. The castle has not settled to her stirring the environment, servants still glancing at her and descending into whispers when she passes, advisors still glaring down their noses at her, even her own handmaiden quiet whenever she needs help to dress for some ceremonious occasion. She much prefers the days when she is left alone to explore, or when Vision is free of meetings and duties to be with her. They spend those days in their quarters, have their meals brought up, and rarely does either of them wear more than a robe to protect modesty when servants come looking.

The first snow comes silvery and light, and she watches it from Vision's arms, sweat still drying on their skin. "I used to love the snow," she says softly, her words almost muffled in the curve of his neck. "Then...my life just became about surviving. Never...never enjoying myself. The cold just meant less food, less work, hoping there would be firewood."

Vision strokes her hair and presses a kiss to the top of her head that's become familiar, gentle and wonderful and terrible. "You can take a walk in it, if you would like," he says. "The grounds stretch all the way into the woods. I would put off anyone who came looking."

"Couldn't you come with me, my lord?" she asks, and gives him a look from beneath her lashes. She knows he's supposed to have a meeting - but she also knows he'll do anything for her. Her darling, devoted husband, who sighs and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear with a rueful smile.

"You are very gifted in the art of persuasion, Wanda," he says, and she smiles sweetly and rolls out of bed. She doesn't reach for one of her dresses, but for soft breeches in a deep red and a white shirt, throwing a thick black coat over it and turning up the collar. When she turns back, her husband is staring at her still, gaze at her waist, her hips, her legs. "I like seeing you out of dresses," he says, and she smirks.

"You enjoy seeing me out of everything," she says, and he grins. The sheet trails around him when he stands up, and he wraps an arm around her, head resting on her shoulder. In the mirror, they look happy, and she looks away before the glass can show up the lie.

"You are beautiful when you wilfully defy being the princess they want," he says, and kisses her cheek. It lives a pinprick of heat behind that continues while she waits for him to dress, his breeches black and his shirt blue, a grey coat pulled tight around him.

He takes her hand and leads her down the servant staircase, the stone less well-maintained than those for the royals, the walls bare of tapestries and paintings. They've had sex on these stairs, pressed up against a column and half-dressed, and he told her while they basked in the afterglow that he would sneak down these stairs as a child, spiralling to the small door to the gardens and the outside world. The cold turns his cheeks and the tips of his nose and ears pink as soon as they're out in it, and she marvels at the silvery veil of snow over the grass, the rainbow of flower petals spotted with it.

"Have you explored much of the gardens?" Vision asks, and she shakes her head, gazing up at the sky. The pale, swollen clouds, the snowflakes daintily spiralling down, the whispering as each lands in the growing blanket. "You aren't afraid of horses, are you?" She shoots him a look, and he laughs. "You would be amazed by how many nobles are afraid of them. My father's most trusted advisor calls them ugly dangerous brutes."

"Your father's most trusted advisor thinks I'm an ugly dangerous brute." The words slip out before she can bite them back, and the horror is immediate. It breaks her mask, the delicate balance between sweet and seductive, it lets who she is creep out, the resentment that boils in her every time she sees the opulence, the heady displays of wealth.

"You are not ugly or dangerous or a brute," Vision says, and there's a sharpness to his voice, defensive. "What my father's advisors think of you should never bother you, Wanda. Regardless of where you came from, regardless of the gossip, we're married. You are their princess."

"You wouldn't know it from the way they whisper about me," she says. "Even the _servants_ -"

"Give me a name," he says, and there's so much sincerity in his voice, painted all across his face when she looks at him. "Tell me who they are. I won't have my wife uncomfortable in her own home."

"It's not my home," she says, and sadness shadows her words, and she wants to fight this tide, stop the words unspooling from her in a great ball of thread. "It's your home. My home...my home is gone."

"Wanda, if you would like to visit the village, all you have to do is ask." He's so sweet, so kind to her, and she turns away. "I would come with you, I've always been partial to the bakery. I want to be a king who knows all of his subjects, not just the nobles and servants."

"That shack was never my home," she says, and the images flash behind her eyes. The golden walls, the gnarled old tree in the garden that a swing was strung from, the thick sturdy branch where she could take her book and hide in the emerald canopy for hours on balmy days. "My home is...a long way off. And long gone." She shakes herself out of the emotion like a dog shaking off water, and turns a sweet smile on her husband. "It's a sad story, my lord. One you don't care to hear, I'm sure."

"You're my wife," he says, and draws her close. "I care to hear everything about you." A kiss dropped on her cold lips, and he smiles. "Why don't we go for a ride into the woods, and perhaps you'll tell me."

He has some spell he's drawn her into. That's the only explanation for why she follows him to the stables, lets him hand her the reins of a handsome chestnut horse, allows him to help her up into the saddle. His horse is a beautiful silvery shade, long-legged and graceful, and astride it he looks like a storybook prince. A man waiting to take the fair maiden from her prison and bear her to a wedding and a happy ever after.

She hasn't ridden a horse in more than ten years, but the memories come back. The animal responds to her, delicate the way she always was compared to Pietro spurring his charges to greater speed, and soon they've ridden past the manicured flowerbeds and into the woods. They are still within castle walls, still maintained, but woods are different to gardens. They keep their wildness, no matter how much people try to tame them. Leaves are scattered by their horses' hooves and silvery snow light haloes the bare trees, bitter wind whipping colour into her face and her hair flying in a long dark ribbon behind her.

There's a small clearing Vision leads her to, a sparkling stream babbling its way between the trees, and he tucks up her horse's reins and helps her down. "They are well-behaved," he says to her concerned look at the unrestrained horses. "They'll drink from the stream, and wait for us to be done here." He looks around, face light with nostalgia, and says, "I used to play here all the time. Drove my nanny to desperation, running away from her to come here."

"I always pegged you for quite the well-behaved little boy," she says, and he laughs. He sits down between the roots of a tree, and beckons her to sit beside him. The ground is cold beneath her, and she tucks her coat tighter around her. "What did you play?"

"Oh, everything," he says, and she can picture him. The golden child of the kingdom, golden-haired and blue-eyed, brandishing some stick as a sword and acting the knight. "I was a storybook prince calling to a princess. I was a knight fighting a dragon. I was a sailor upon the high seas. I was the pirate captain he fought-" She stiffens, and he is immediately quiet. He shifts and finally says, "You ride well."

"For a poor girl?" It's another snap, another broken string in her mask, and she can almost feel him slipping away, can feel him seeing through to who she is, to her web of lies. It would ruin her, shatter everything she has, send her back to the shack and Pietro's dark rage. "My lord, I didn't mean-"

"You did," he says, and she winces, breaking his gaze. "You have every right to be angry, Wanda. You know why I ask you not to call me your lord?" She shakes her head, and he says, "You are not below me because of where you came from. Even before we were married, before you were my lady, you were as important as I am."

"You're a prince," she says. "That makes you important."

"Everyone is important," he says. "People are important. They are good, and they are bad, and they are everything in between. That is why I want to be a ruler who makes positive changes for everyone, who people will see as valuing them. That is why you will help me rule, my lady."

She glances down at her lap, her coat drawn tight over her thighs, and quietly says, "I didn't always live in that shack."

"Tell me your story," he says, and when she looks up at him he's gazing at her reverently. Like she's precious, something he could never have found elsewhere. "I want to know everything about you."

And perhaps it is the magic of the first snow, the clearing with the trees arching their dark skeletons over them and seeming to protect them from prying eyes, perhaps it is just the blue of his eyes and the heavy lock of golden hair falling over his forehead, but she starts to talk. The words come out in delicate silver smoke on the cold air, and Vision stares at her while she speaks, his hand slowly creeping over the space between them until their fingers are intertwined.

"My father was a merchant. He shipped spices, ornaments, furniture. There was money enough to keep us warm and our bellies full. He and my mother were so kind, the money we had no need for would go to the community. They were people who would go to a woman across town who had just given birth with several weeks' worth of food and money to help keep her and her baby safe." Her breath catches in her throat before she can go on, and she says, "Then he...he took on work for richer clients. The cargo was more valuable, and he went with the ships to be sure it made it safely across the Black Sea. And...and his ship was attacked by pirates. No crew survived." It all comes back to her, the man in black at the door, her mother's awful scream, Pietro punching the wall over and over until his knuckles were raw and bloody.

"I'm so sorry." The words are simple, but Vision is sincere. She's beginning to realise that everything he does is sincere, that he deals only in truth and honesty, that the last bride he should have chosen was her. "He sounds like a good man."

"He was," she says, choking over the words. "Our house had to be sold. I remember trying to hide from the collectors in the tree I would read in. I remember watching them tear down the swing my father had attached to that tree and throw it away. I..." She falls silent over the grief that still looms in her chest, and Vision squeezes her hand. "My mother sold almost everything we could claim ownership to. Even then, it was barely enough to pay back the investors who had lost money on that attacked ship. We had to leave the town I grew up in for the village, for that shack. My brother...Pietro wasn't old enough to be man of the house. He would try to comfort her when she had to sell her wedding ring and gifts from their marriage to pay for our heat, but it was never enough."

"How did she die?" Vision asks gently, and she winces, tears swelling in a constricting lump in her throat. "I'm sorry, that...that was a rude way to ask."

"It was the cold," she says, and his face contorts in a mask of sympathy. "I haven't loved the snow since she died. When I was younger, we would build snowmen, and sled, and she'd make the same soup every time. I remember the recipe like it was written on me." She reaches up to dab her eyes, and suddenly Vision is tugging a silk handkerchief from a sleeve, and pressing it into her hands. "She got too thin. She would always sacrifice her share so Pietro and I had enough to eat. She just wasn't strong enough to fight off winter. It was a cold, then pneumonia, and by the time a doctor listened to a pair of scared fifteen year olds it was too late to help her." She shudders, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye to trace silvery down her cheek, and says, "It was five years ago and I still remember the sound of her last breath. All I have left of her is the storybook she wrote for me, her wedding dress, and this necklace." Her thumb tugs at the gold chain around her neck, and Vision nods gently.

"You are so strong," he breathes, and she shakes her head. "No, you are. I don't know if I could've gone through that and still come out as...strong, and brave, and _kind_ , as you are."

"I think you are the one telling stories," she says, and he shakes his head, grasping her hand tighter.

"You may not be of noble birth, but not a single one of the women at the ball that I was supposed to choose could hold a candle to you," he says. "The moment I saw you, I knew you had a unique kind of beauty. Those women, they were all born noble. They're sleek and glamorous and they understand that the world will bend over backwards to give them what they want. I grew up like that, and I want to try to be better." He moves closer, caresses her cheek with cold fingers, and says, "But _you_...after everything was torn from you, you are still gracious. You will help change this world we live in."

"I'm sure your life has not been without hardship, my lord," she says, sweet and demure again, and he shakes his head.

"It's an honour to call you my wife, my lady," he breathes, and breaks the distance between them to kiss her. She welcomes his arms around her to chase away the memories, her parents' smiling faces and gentle affection, her brother's eyes before the anger twisted there.

The frost-stained leaves scratch her back when he lays her down without her coat, hand snaking up beneath her shirt. The air is a cold shock on her skin, but then his body covers her to keep her warm.

She rides back to the castle with leaves in her hair and smug satisfaction curling in her chest when she watches an advisor berate Vision for missing a meeting. He nods and bows his head and then shoots her a smile, and her heart quivers. He knows her story, and he still held her and kissed her and made her sigh his name beneath the song of the woods.

Every day only makes her more keenly aware that she's lying to him. Every night only makes the guilt claw more hotly at the confines of her chest. Every dream only fills her with more dread at the thought that Pietro will still expect her to play her part in assassinating her poor, sweet, handsome, naive husband.

* * *

Vision had the piano moved to their chambers after she told him she missed the instrument. Sitting on the velvet-cushioned stool brings her back to childhood, to her mother standing behind her guiding her hands, to the music that would fill the corridors of the house with the golden walls. The long ago days of endless summer, when even the rain could be made fun by how her parents enchanted her, when her brother was truly her brother, when she knew she was loved. Not this cold castle, truly held in the grip of winter now, a fur drawn around her shoulders and her hands shivering over the ivory keys.

If only her husband would stop showing her such acts of kindness. The servants don't stare at her anyone, and she suspects he is the reason why. It would be easier to remember the plan, to think only of the future where she escapes with untold fortune to a place away from this kingdom, if he wasn't sweet to her. Tiny moments like bringing her an instrument she only off-handedly mentioned having played as a child, defending her from even the odd looks, stoking fires in their grates when she shivers and accompanying her on walks around the grounds, through the woods.

They came to the wall on their last walk, late in the afternoon with dusk falling in whispers around them, and they sat there a while. He put an arm around her when she shivered, and softly told her tales of the way the wall was built, the builder ancestor of his who planned it to protect the kingdom from the once-savage men of the mountains beyond. Now, those men are kings in their own right, a trade partner. But she's always preferred the stories to politics, the shades of magic that are woven through them when nannies tell them to the children they care for, bedtime stories from parents' lips. These are gentle, wonderful moments in the months of her marriage, moments that make her forget what she came here to do. The escape she is fighting for.

"My lady?" She looks up from the piano, fingers still resting on the cool keys, to one of the guards framed in the doorway. "Your brother is at the gates asking for an audience with you. Shall I tell him you will see him?" Maybe they see the way her fingers tense on the keys, because they add, "I can tell him that you will send a messenger to organise a more appropriate time to meet, my lady."

"No...no, it's alright," she says, and slowly stands, smoothing the velvet of her dress over her hips as she slides out from behind the piano. "Take him to the grey meeting room. I'll see him alone."

"My lady, we are told not to let you speak to anyone alone-"

"I am your princess, and I'm telling you to let me speak to my brother alone," she says sharply, and the guard bows his head in respect and backs out of the room. She takes a moment to collect herself, pulling all the frayed threads of herself back together. She will not let Pietro scare her the way he always has. When she sees him, whatever he is here to ask her, she will be strong. Her life is hers, her position is one she got to on her own merit, she will not let him intimidate her.

Even sweeping into the room where he's waiting, she wants to display herself as the princess of the kingdom, to make him back off. Her handmaiden arranged her hair in elegant braids this morning, dressed her in dark velvet against the chill that pervades the castle even though people keep promising spring is on the air, and she can hold her head high and move like a royal through the castle.

But the moment Pietro looks up at her, she shrinks. She's who she was before, armour clattering to the ground, hiding in the shadowed corners of the shack in a desperate attempt to evade his temper. It feels pointless again, and he _knows_ it, she can feel the smugness in him when he gives her an intimidation-edged smile and asks, "How are you, _Your Highness_?" When she stays silent, fingers curling into her skirts, he laughs hollowly and asks, "Isn't that what us lowly commoners are supposed to call you now?"

"What are you doing here, Pietro?" she snaps, and something fiery flares up in his eyes.

"What, a concerned brother can't drop by to see his sister and ask how her marriage is going?" he asks, arms spread wide in a gesture of surrender, and she folds her arms over her chest, lifting her chin in an attempt to look defiant. "How long has it been now? Four months?"

"Five," she says shortly, and he sits down at the meeting table, kicking worn boots up onto the table, looking for all the world like he belongs there. Like it is the surroundings that are too opulent, not his clothes that are too shabby.

"Five months of acting the prince's whore," he says, and the words strike through her, carving holes in her. "Tell me, sister - is it worth it? Is it worth the way the people whisper about their poverty-stricken princess?"

"The moment he proposed, I was out of poverty," she says, and he laughs.

"Yes, escaping from poverty not through hard work or perseverance, but by spreading your legs for a prince," he says derisively. "How _noble_. And while you ascended to the height of society, you left me to rot."

"With your money going to supporting just you, you're in a better position," she says, still refusing to sit down. She won't act as if this is some polite negotiation where they're on equal footing. This is not a review of a trade agreement between two kingdoms, this is her brother stepping into her space in a desperate attempt to intimidate her. "You can sell anything we had for me, I'm sure there are families that need it. If you've been taking care of my garden, you'll still have food to get by." She shakes out her skirts and lifts her shoulders and snaps, "If you wanted to escape, you should've attempted to seduce a royal. There were plenty of princesses from other kingdoms at that ball that you could've unleashed your _charms_ on."

"Oh, but then I wouldn't get the satisfaction of watching you pretend to be some blushing bride," he says, and she tries to keep her gaze locked on his, not to be intimidated. "What does your new husband think? Is he hopelessly, helplessly in love with this person you're pretending to be? Does he _know_ that you fucked him as part of our plot?"

"Vision is a good man," she says, and Pietro grins, a horrible smug smile, teeth bared. "If he suspects, he's said nothing to me or anyone in this castle. He's insisted on the servants and the guards treating me with more respect than they did before."

"Of course the servants see right through you," he says. "They're people like us, just trying to get by. And you...you're just some whore from the village, reaching a station you should never have been allowed to reach."

"We were a merchant's children," she says sharply. "We might have married the children of noblemen. You still could, if you would just-"

"Don't you tell me what we were," he snaps, and his eyes are hard and cold. "They never wanted our parents in their society. Honest, good people never get what they deserve in life. You," he gestures at her, her beautiful dress, the ring on her finger, the silk-lined walls she's standing against, "are proof of that. What gives you any more right to a life like this than me?"

"I did something to try to reach for it-"

"It was _my_ idea," Pietro snaps, and she winces. "And you've enacted it so elegantly and effectively so far, sister. But it's time to move to the next stage." He stares her down and asks, "You do remember what we were supposed to do next, don't you?"

"Are you seriously stupid enough that you've come to the castle to speak to the princess about your plan to assassinate the prince?" she asks. "There are a hundred guards in this place."

"But none outside this room," he says, and a chill drips down her spine. "I know you told them not to listen in. I'm sure that's what you've been doing since you came here, so no one will hear how often you have to fuck your precious prince to keep him interested. So, _my lady_ , let us discuss."

"If you hurt him, the king will only choose another heir," she says, unable to force herself to say 'kill'. She can't bear to think of Pietro hurting Vision, of her husband at her brother's mercy because of something she did. Because she gave him a way in, a clear and perfect path to some kind of twisted revenge. "It won't be me. It'll be some nobleman's son who he trusts. So all I'd leave with would be a little money. None of what you imagine."

"Well you see, I have thought of that," Pietro says, smugness radiating bright from every inch of his face. "Of course the king would just send his son's widow to maybe some other property he owns, allow her to grieve in private. Pay her off perhaps, so she won't tell the world of what she saw in this castle. So I think that you have to be sure that your grip on the future of the throne is strong." He leans back in his chair, so confident of his superiority, and simply says, "You have to be carrying an heir. Little prince has to get you pregnant."

The chill takes her whole body for a moment, a shiver passing through her as her mind goes to blank white with horror. "No." It's one word fallen from her lips, small and scared, and she shakes her head again as Pietro's face is painted momentarily with confusion. "I'm not doing that. I won't...I won't bring a child into that mess."

"Oh, but don't you see how perfect it would be?" Pietro asks, and he stands up, crossing the room to take her hands. "A miracle for the mourning royals, their daughter-in-law carrying an heir. A piece of their lost son. They wouldn't be able to ask you to leave or pay you off if you're carrying an heir. If you have a child with that prince, then you could be queen regent after the king steps down. You would be in charge, and you could make change."

" _Vision_ wants to make change," she says sharply, and shadow shutters over Pietro's face. "He's told me. He wants to make things better for everyone, try to lessen the inequality. He wants my help, my experience, to do it. If I could do that, things would be different. That would mean more than just having a child with him."

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Pietro asks coldly. "You think you could help change everything? _You_? You're nothing more than some whore he wants for now. What happens if advisors tell him to leave you? They'll make up some story about infidelity and cast you out when they want proper breeding stock. The only way you can stop that is to get yourself pregnant first." He sneers down at her, backing her towards the wall. "Aren't you already fucking him every night? He'd have gotten rid of you already if you weren't. Princes only want poor girls for sex."

"I'm not doing this anymore," she says, and she wishes it came out sharper, more dangerous. But it's caught in a sob, tangled up in terror, and there's still an unnerving gleam in Pietro's eyes. "I won't be a part of this plan. I'm not going to help you hurt him, and I'm not going to bring a child into the world to grow up without their father. You of all people know what that does to someone. I'm not playing your stupid game anymore."

"Listen to me, you _bitch_ -" He seizes her wrist, so tightly it hurts, bending it at a strange angle, and yanks her back to stare into her eyes, hot sour breath on her face. "You do this, or so help me I'll make you regret saying no to me."

"Let go of me!" The yelp comes out louder than she meant, and the next moment the door is open and a guard is grabbing Pietro, pulling him away from her. She's pulling her wrist to her side, rubbing the dull red mark his grip left, and pressing herself into the wall, small and scared.

Then Vision is there, and his gaze is moving rapidly back and forth between her and Pietro before his jaw clenches. "Are you alright, darling?" he asks, and she nods, words and her breath and her everything trapped in her chest. "What do you want done with him?" He gestures to Pietro, and she straightens herself up, attempting to look royal.

"Get rid of him," she says, and the guards nods, short and sharp. "I don't want to speak to him." She lets Pietro look at her, his gaze wild, and says, "If anyone sees you near this castle again, I will have you arrested. Stay away from me."

She expects him to yell at her, scream obscenities and insults as the guards drag him away. But he's eerily silent, and when she looks at him he only smiles. It sends a chill through her, right down to her bones, and when her husband comes to take her hands and asks again, "Are you alright?" she shakes her head and leans into him, hiding her face in the folds of his shirt.

He bears her away from it all, into the quiet of their chambers. Out of sight of the guards and the servants and even the windows, and she sits down at the end of their bed and hunches in over herself. He moves around her silently, making space for her, drawing the drapes over the darkness pressing in at the windows and lighting a fire to chase off the lingering chill hovering in the air. When she looks up at him, her chest still filled with some nameless pressure and words she wants to say stuck in her throat, she quietly says, "I thought you had a meeting."

"A guard came to fetch me the moment you insisted on being alone with your brother," he says, and something ricochets through her like pain, leaving her staring down at the sheen of velvet stretched over her legs. "Wanda? Would you like to talk about it?"

"What is there to say?" Her voice feels small coming out of her, quiet and sad, and she can't bear to look up at her husband, to see herself reflected in his eyes. A liar, a whore, a selfish girl who escaped poverty and left everyone behind. "You saw what happened."

"I saw him grab you, and I saw that you were scared," he says. "Nothing more. I don't know what transpired in that room for you and him to reach that point." He sits down next to her on the bed, the mattress dipping beneath their combined weight, and quietly says, "But I would like to know. If you would like to tell me."

"You don't want to hear my problems, Vision," she says, running her fingers over her skirt. "Aren't you supposed to have dinner with your parents? Go, do that, tell them I've taken ill. There's no reason for you to listen to me."

"On the contrary, Wanda, darling, when I married you that became the reason to listen to you," he says, and she tries not to let any colour creep into her cheeks at the sweet new pet name. It makes something warm blossom in her chest, a flower unfurling from the cold of winter. "Please, tell me. The guards will of course now keep him away, but I would like to understand your relationship with him. I've only seen you together a handful of times, and each time you seemed...afraid."

Some part of him doesn't want to tell him. Some part of her still believes in the strength of family, wants to defend her brother until her last breath, finds excuses for the dreadful way he treats her. The way he treats her now, and the way he's treated her for years, while she's kept it all a secret. Locked up tight in the back of her mind, only escaping as scant tears slanting sideways down her face in the dead of night. She drags her eyes to Vision, looking at her with so much compassion and concern in his gentle gaze, and asks, "Are you sure you want to know?"

"I want to know everything about you," he says, and it rings so true and kind that she wants to run. He is so genuine, so wholly himself, and she's been lying to him for months. Half a year spent as part of his life, building this relationship, and she's lied to him for every moment of it. The light in his eyes is built on a fairytale that doesn't exist.

She reaches for his hand first, lacing her fingers into his for the reassuring warmth of his skin. She makes herself look into his eyes to tell the tale, promising herself to her heart that she won't lie. She never has when she tells him of her past, everything has been true but for her pretense that she didn't have an ulterior motive in marrying him. "Pietro was...when we were children, he was my brother," she says, and it comes out helpless. How can she ever truly express to her husband, an only child, what it was to have a twin, to have someone who cared so deeply for her, protected her from everything the outside world might throw at her. "He...he protected me. He loved me. He cared for me as much as our parents did. More, really. It was an unbreakable bond."

Vision's eyes are so gentle on her, and she leans across the gap between them and kisses him. Just once. Softly. To remind herself that she turned Pietro away for threatening this man's life, trying to drag her into a plot to kill her husband. "And then our father died," she says, quiet and sad. "And he changed. He blamed the upper classes, the people he was transporting cargo for. Of course, my mother and I told him it was a freak chance, it could have happened to anyone, pirate attacks in the Black Sea had been worsening. But he wouldn't listen. He wanted...he wanted to be angry. He didn't want to mourn and let go. He wore rage like a cape."

"Did he ever...Wanda, did he ever hurt you?" The question is dark and solemn on her husband's lips, and she immediately shakes her head. "Please. Please tell me if he did."

"He would never," she says, but she can feel the falsehood ring through it. Thinking of moments when she was truly scared, when whiskey was sour on his breath and his eyes were gleaming cruel and he'd hem her in, backing her into a corner and shadow. "Sometimes, I've...he gets a look in his eyes. But he's never taken it out on me, _never_. Not even when we were grieving children and he might have gotten away with it."

"And what happened when your mother passed away?" Vision asks. "What happened when it was just the two of you?"

"He...he blamed the rich then too," she says. "I was home most of the time, nursing her. He would go out looking for work, but no one would stop to give him the time of day. We had so little money, our clothes were rags and we were always filthy. Growing up with money, I never knew what it was like to long to be clean. And then when...when we buried our mother, he got angrier. Wilder. He'd leave me to think of practicalities, like water and food and shelter and clothes. I had my garden, we even kept chickens for a while. But he would still...rage. If I did something wrong, something he felt was wrong, he..." She trails off, the words trapped like shards of glass, sharp and deadly. She can't describe those long frightened nights to her husband. Frightened when he wasn't home, that something had happened and she was alone in the world. Frightened when he was, when he came home with wildness in his gaze. So scared of what he might do.

"Don't let it be known that I would ever speak ill of anyone in the kingdom," Vision says softly, "but I'm glad you're away from him. I promise you, Wanda, you're safe in the castle. And if we venture into the village, we'll bring guards. I won't let him frighten you again."

"He...he asked questions about our marriage," she says, and her husband's gaze becomes curious. This, she can tell the truth on. She cannot tell him of the plot without exposing her own part in it, without losing the moments when he looks at her with tenderness in his gaze and her heart flutters, but she can tell him this. "He wanted to know...since it has been a few months now, if...if we were planning an heir. He wanted to know if he would have access to our child."

"He will not," Vision says, sharp and hard, and she looks up at him in surprise. She's never heard that deadly edge in her husband's voice. "You are frightened of him, and that is enough to tell me there is a potential for him to do something terrible. Any child we have will be kept far away from him." He tucks her hair behind her ear and smiles reassuringly when he says, "But do not worry, darling, there is no rush to produce an heir. I won't even be crowned king for a few years yet, unless something happens to my father."

"That is...good, my lord," she says, and he smiles. "I don't think I am yet ready for a child."

"Nor am I," he says, and lifts her hand to his lips to press a searing kiss to her palm, his eyes on hers sending desire shooting hot through her stomach. "I would like months more to simply enjoy being married to you." He kisses her, just once, soft and gentle without trying to lead her anywhere. "Now, darling, will you accompany me to dine with my parents?"

She nods, and he _beams_. His whole face is alight with affection, her hand in the crook of his elbow when he leads her downstairs, to the fluttering concerns of his parents over the intruder, and a meal that would once have sustained her for a week. She's quiet through the meal, while Vision and his parents discuss the new proposals for trade with the kingdom across the Black Sea, and she stares down at her plate and twists her fingers through the tablecloth.

Sending Pietro away was right. Banning him from the castle was right. She won't follow through on the plan. It was one thing to threaten death to Vision when he was a faceless prince, when she didn't know him, when she hadn't kissed him and lain with him and heard him sigh her name and curled up his warmth in the middle of cold nights. When he hadn't looked at her the way he is wont to do, bright and open and tender.

She cannot think of allowing anyone to hurt the man who she will have a child with. One day. Any day that fate chooses for her. When she pictures her child, she sees a baby in Vision's arms, sees that same wonder in his eyes that he has when he looks at her above him in their bed, and it takes a moment to suppress a smile.

Even though she does not yet feel ready, when she looks at Vision she thinks that perhaps, together, they might be.

* * *

Spring is finally bringing its sweetness to the castle. When Wanda stands at the balcony, she can see the colour starting to return to the village, and out on walks in the gardens she can reach up and touch the sticky new buds on the trees. When she and Vision take the horses into the woods, there are flickering silver fish in the stream and their clearing is starting to be dappled with green light as the leaves return. She can shed some of her heavy furs and velvet, and she can start to enjoy the outdoors with Vision.

Spring nights are cool, and there are still fires lit all over the castle. Wanda is curled up in her chambers, of her side on the bed, waiting for Vision to leave his meeting with his advisors, the fire crackling a gentle symphony behind her. She's dressed in her white nightgown and sitting carefully, trying to keep her hands from straying to her stomach. The castle doctor's voice echoes in her head over and over again, her eyes shining as she says, "Congratulations, my lady. You're pregnant. The prince will be thrilled."

When she does touch her stomach, feeling the curve beneath her dress, her fingers spread wide and protective over her bump. She can't help but think of Pietro's threats, the way he told her that she should get herself pregnant with an heir and ensure her grip on the throne. She refused to do it. But she should've thought that she couldn't keep having sex with her husband without risking it. She was lucky to never fall pregnant from those hasty village encounters in the dark. Now she's carrying a prince's child, no doubt a child the king and queen will hope to be a son, and she's tangled herself in Vision's life. She can't extricate herself from him now she's expecting his baby. Any plan she had of telling him some sort of truth and leaving their marriage to protect him won't work now.

The door handle creaks, and she sits up when her husband walks in. His hair is falling in his eyes after a long day, but his eyes brighten when he sees her, and he crosses the room to kiss her softly. "Have you eaten yet?" he asks, and she nods. "We had food in our meeting. I think I'm convincing the advisors to start to truly examine the economic inequality in the kingdom. Soon we'll need your help in those meetings too." He kisses her again, so sweet, and asks, "Did you go to see the doctor?"

"I did," she says quietly. She stands to move past him and stoke the fire, the sparks crackling against the stones. "And she knows what's been wrong with me."

"Are you alright?" he asks, and the concern in her voice is like a lance through her chest. She has to take a deep breath before she can even think of telling him. She's been thinking about how to tell him all day, but the words just slip out.

"I'm pregnant." There's silence behind her, and she stares at the fire and pleads, "Say something."

" _Wanda_." She looks back at him, and his eyes are wide, and as she watches a smile slowly spreads across his face. "You're pregnant? We're having a baby?"

"That's what she says," she says, and stands up, tugging at her nightgown to show him the way it now clings to her slightly rounded belly. "She was surprised you hadn't noticed that I was starting to get a bump."

He gazes down at her as he moves closer, gaze flickering between her and her stomach. Then he pulls her into a long kiss, holding her close, and her arms twine around his neck. She lets herself fall into him for a moment. When they part, he looks down at her so reverently, and very gently reaches down to place his hand spread wide over the new curve of her belly. "I know we'll have to tell my parents soon," he says softly, "but I like this. A secret. Just for us." His eyes are bright and his smile so sweet when he breathes, "Our baby." It almost brings tears springing to her eyes, seeing this man in front of her, so kind and so gentle, her husband. The man she's stringing along, waiting for the moment to take everything he has.

Or that was the plan. She's not sure what that plan has become now, with his baby in her belly and her heart skipping whenever he smiles at her.

Vision pulls her back to the moment tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, long fingers curving gently to her cheek. "Are you alright?" he asks, and she pins her smile on and nods, leaning into his touch. "Are you sure? You seem a little...odd." His face shadows momentarily and he asks, "Aren't you happy?"

"I'm fine," she says, and his eyes are searching her face, she's so scared he'll see the truth there, realise that she's not who she's been pretending to be. "Just...overwhelmed. I didn't imagine I would fall pregnant as quickly as I have."

"Well, when you spend as much time alone together as we do, it's bound to happen," he says with a slight mischievous sparkle to his eyes, and she shakes her head, allowing herself to look bashful, blush delicately. "I'll admit that this is...faster than I anticipated. But I'm happy." He lifts her chin up, his eyes finding hers, and softly says, "I'm happy I get to do this with you."

"You said you weren't ready," she breathes, and he smiles slightly, his face so close to hers he's almost blurring. Like an image through the rain, an image through the tears she so desperately wants to cry.

"I am now." He leans down first to kiss her, and she winds her arms slowly around his neck, holding him close. Breathing him in, feeling rather than hearing him groan when she slides her fingers into the thick hair at the back of his neck. His arms tightening around her, his mouth open above hers, and he's lifting her across the room and onto their bed, settling gently between her spread legs. They're breaking out of the kiss to undress each other, he's apologising over and over again when her nightgown gets stuck in her hair, and she's soothing him with another kiss.

"Make love to me," she breathes, and the air is hotter, pressing in all around them. His eyes are so blue, darkened with want, and his hands are so gentle. Drawing patterns like gilded gold into her skin, fingers sliding down to touch her until she's gasping, tilting her hips up to his in a silent plea. He starts to move, hands wrapping around her waist, and she shakes her head, breathing, "Like this."

"But-"

"Getting on top is going to make me feel nauseous," she says, wincing slightly at how saying that might ruin the mood. But he just smiles, relaxes again, and leans down to kiss her. Even as he slides into her and she gasps his name, they don't stop kissing, tangled up in each other.

They've never had sex so tender. He's so gentle, rhythm so slow, hands moving so slowly over her skin. Like he's afraid she'll break, handling her like some priceless piece of glass. It's like a spell has fallen over them, magic she's loath to break, their voices never rising above whispers and breaths and sharp little gasps. He kisses her and whispers, "You're beautiful," against her lips, and she digs her nails into his shoulders in moon-shaped marks, his name a prayer.

Silence holds as they lie staring at each other, close enough to share breath. Her head is somewhere else, spinning and lost. For those minutes, nothing exists but them, no plot beyond their bed. Nothing but his eyes, his handsome face, the slender length of him above her, his gentle kisses. Her heart is pounding against her bones, and she's lost. The plan is crumpled, she was hopeless the moment he held her after their wedding night. She's stringing along a man who cares for her, who kisses her so gently and winces when his weight slips onto her.

She pushes him gently away and goes to the bathroom to clean herself up. Pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes until she sees swirling blue to stop the frantic prickle of tears. She will not cry, she will not break, she will not regret what she's done. But she does, a broken fragment of a sob escaping her in a squeak, the hand not muffling her sounds pressed to her belly. She's bringing a baby into a marriage that only started because she sucked a prince's cock, she's ruining the life of a genuinely kind man, she's become something she doesn't recognise.

But when she goes back to Vision, her face is clean and her eyes dry, and his gaze rests on her as she slides back into her nightgown, smoothing the white lace over her hips. "Are you alright?" he asks, and she moves into his arms, resting her head on his bare chest. "Wanda?"

"You're so gentle," she says, running a finger down over his stomach. "Almost too gentle. I won't break, you know."

"I know," he says, running a hand through her hair. "But I can't stand the thought of hurting you. Or our baby." A kiss brushed to the top of her head, and softly spoken words that hit her like a spike driven into her chest. "I love you, Wanda." She doesn't speak, and he quietly adds, "You don't have to say anything. I just need you to know. I can't carry that around with me anymore. You are beautiful, and you are kind, and you stand up for yourself, and I love you."

She buries her face in his chest to hide the tears in her eyes, and he doesn't say anything more. He doesn't move her even to blow out the lamp. His hand just rests over the small of her back, almost cradling her, while she silently weeps. He holds her so tenderly, but he loves a lie. She's not the woman he thinks she is, and the grief is profound, pulling the tears from her until she finally succumbs to sleep.

When she jerks awake, it's still dark in the room, misty gloom. And she reaches for her husband, to roll back into his arms and sleep, but she touches rough fabric instead of skin, and blinks herself into real consciousness. Pietro is on top of Vision, and he finds her eyes and smirks, raising a finger to his lips. Then she sees the gleam in his hand, a knife poised to drive into her husband's chest, and she screams and grabs blindly.

The pain is unimaginable as the knife opens her palm and blood comes spilling out, covering her nightgown and the sheets in drops of scarlet. Vision's eyes fly open and he bucks Pietro off, and her brother's eyes are wild when he grabs her, colliding her with the wall so hard her head snaps back against it. "You stupid bitch," he snarls, spittle flying in her face, and she smells the whiskey on him, the sour fear, her own blood. "Scream again, and I'll-"

"Get away from my wife," Vision snaps, still unsteady on his feet, and Pietro whirls on him like a wildfire, knuckles white on the knife, and he knees Vision in the stomach to send him to the floor, standing over him with something unhinged in his eyes and blood on his hands.

"Don't hurt him!" she shrieks, her brother's face feral as he leans over her husband, the knife at his throat. "Please. _Please_."

Pietro straightens up, his gaze swivelling between her and Vision, and finally he laughs, a horrid hollow sound. "Oh, this is too funny," he says, idly spinning the knife in his hand. "You're in love with him? _Him_? The prince you were going to seduce and marry and kill for money? You went and fucking _fell for him_?"

"Wanda-" She can't bear to look at Vision, can't bear to think of his expression, the betrayal her brother has lain out ripe for the picking. Pietro is grinning, enjoying himself, running the tip of the knife along Vision's chest, blood rising and spilling from the shallow wound, and there's rushing in her ears, she can hardly hear herself screaming, whimpering, begging him to stop.

"Just...please don't kill him," she whispers, a last desperate chance, and Pietro looks up at her. There's blood mingling with dirt on his clothes, his eyes somewhere else, and he shakes his head, jaw gritted.

"Then you're both useless to me," he says, looking between them. "A whore and a prince too stupid to see through her lies." He raises the knife again, and he moves towards her, grabbing her by the front of her nightgown, tearing the lace with sharp, hard fingers. "You can both die for all I care," he snarls, breath hot and sour on her face.

There's so much blood, still running from the wounds on her palm, on the knife, on Vision's skin, and Pietro viciously backhands her across the face, pain ricocheting across her cheek. Vision shouts her name, another plea, and Pietro laughs. "Maybe you are worth something after all," he whispers, and deliberately, almost tenderly, puts a hand to her throat, pressing in, cutting off her air. "He still begs for your life, even knowing what you did. His manipulative little slut."

The knife clatters to the ground, and his hand balls up into a fist, aimed at her stomach, and she drags in the air to gasp, " _No_ , don't, _please_ , I...I'm pregnant, I'm _pregnant_ , _don't_ -"

"You're pregnant?" There's genuine shock in his voice, the pressure on her throat relaxing for a second.

Then long fingers are over Pietro's shoulders, throwing him to the ground, Vision standing over him with fire in his eyes, snarling, "Don't you _touch_ her!"

An explosion of noise as the door is kicked in, guards swarming into their bedroom, and someone is wrestling Pietro onto his stomach, wrapping rope around his wrists, and she can't even straighten up and support her own weight, trembling against the wall. Her throat aches and her eyes are stinging with tears and there's blood filling her palms, leaving scarlet handprints on the white of her nightgown. Rushing echoes in her ears, the world fading in and out at the edges, and though Vision rushes to her and takes her waist between his hands, his eyes frantically searching her face, she can't hear whatever words his lips shape.

She just whispers, "I'm sorry," in the second before the world goes black and the ground rushes up to meet her.

* * *

Her palm itches. As consciousness rises like the tide to meet her, the itch becomes more of a burn, and she looks down at her hands. A bandage is wrapped tightly around each one, dried blood like rust on her skin, and everything comes flooding back. Pietro. The knife. The hand at her throat. Screaming, begging for him not to hurt Vision. Her husband. Her husband who told her he _loves_ her.

There's a guard posted by the door, and when she looks around she's in her old room. The quarters she stayed in when she first came to the castle, before she and Vision were married and she could exercise her right to share his bed. The guard is staring at her, and she moves in the bed, still dressed in her bloodstained nightgown. "Don't try to move, my lady," the guard says. His voice is gentle, but she can't fail to notice his hand still resting fast on the hilt of the sword strapped to his hip. "You had a terrible shock. The doctor says you should be on bed rest for now. Too much activity could cause harm to you and your unborn child."

"Why am I in here?" she asks, and her voice is hoarse. Marked from her brother trying to kill her, his hard fingers pressing into her throat, crushing her breath out of her. "Where is my husband?"

"He has been in meetings all day," the guard says, and she glances at the window to see the burnished light of sunset there. It was the middle of the night when Pietro attacked them. She must have been unconscious for hours. "He, his parents and the advisors are discussing what to do with the prisoner."

"How long have I been unconscious?" she asks. Her hand strays from the sheets to her belly, and she curves her palm protectively over her bump, the tiny life inside her. Her helpless child.,

"The prince woke the doctor in the middle of the night to tend to you," the guard says. "Your wounds needed stitches and bandages to stop the blood. When he was told you would wake when your body was ready, the king ordered you brought here and guarded while they dealt with the prisoner."

"Well, now I'm awake and I would like to help them deal with my brother myself," she says, and slowly leverages herself off the bed. "Could you please have more appropriate clothing brought to me?"

"My orders were clear, my lady," the guard says, and his voice isn't so gentle anymore. "You are not to be allowed out of this room. I will send for food, and a change of clothing, but you cannot leave. It's a question of safety."

"Haven't I just survived the attack?" she asks, and the guard's eyes are hard when he looks at her.

"We have reason to suspect that you might have been involved in the attack," he says, and her heart drops like a stone. "Until they can prove otherwise, you are not allowed to be involved in negotiations. You are not allowed to come into contact with anyone you can harm."

"I am your _princess_ , and I order you to-"

"My orders come directly from the king," the guard says, and she collapses back onto the end of the bed, staring at the floor. "I'm sorry, my lady. I'll send for food and a change of clothes. Of course, they want you to be comfortable. It's only a temporary measure."

He honours the promise, even having a servant bring books from the library with her dinner. He waits outside the door while she bathes and changes her clothes, helped by a handmaiden who won't even look at her. She can feel the suspicion edging their gazes, people who think she was part of a plot to help kill her husband. And she was, she _was_ , changing her mind in the end doesn't erase what she did. Why she started everything. How could she ever have thought it was a good plan, that she wouldn't end up alone and scared and aching. Of course she deserves to hurt like this, after stringing Vision along. After making him fall in love with her.

She can only pick at her dinner, the food like dust in her mouth. It's only by reminding herself that she has a child to care for that makes her eat more than a bite, and she stares miserably at the first page of a book, her eyes running over the text but her mind taking none of it in. She only looks up when there's a knock at the door and the guard opens it to say, "My lord, I'm under instruction not to leave anyone alone with her-"

"I just want to talk to my wife." Vision's voice sends light through her, brightening her from the inside out, and she straightens up on the bed, pushing her plate and her book aside.

"My lord, your parents believe she may be dangerous-"

"You'll be right outside the door, if she's somehow concealing a weapon I'll scream." Then the door is opening and the guard is stepping outside and Vision is there, gazing at her with unconcealed concern and love and wonder in his eyes. She almost shrinks under the weight of it, the way he looks at her, the adoration of it all.

"Vision, I'm so sorry-"

"You have nothing to apologise for, Wanda," he says, and crosses the room to take her hands and pull her to her feet. She winces when his fingers clutch too tightly over the bandaged wounds on her palm, and he winces, she sees a white-hot rage in his eyes for a moment. "I should have thought that something like this could happen, I should have prepared the guards. But I never thought...even after what you told me, I never thought your brother would stoop that low. You do not need to be sorry, my love. You saved my life by waking me." He touches her so gently, reverently, his hands light on her face and her shoulders and her bump, as if he's afraid she'll shatter like antique glass. "He could've killed you. He could've killed you and our baby and I would have nothing."

"It's my fault," she whispers, and he shakes his head. "It _is_. I've been lying to you, I've been lying to you all this time, and I'm sorry, there's nothing else I can say."

"What are you talking about?" He tilts his head, innocence in his words, his eyes so sad and so concerned. There are shadows beneath his eyes, a sleepless night, and she aches to just fall into his arms and let him believe. But she can't lie to him, not anymore. Not after she watched him beg for her life, after he told her he loved her, with her stomach rounding with their baby between them. It will mean losing him, but perhaps that is the price she must pay for what she's done.

"I lied," she says, her voice shaky. Every word is a moment closer to him stepping away, looking at her in disgust, to giving up her marriage and her home and _him_. "I...when we met, I was at that ball because Pietro stole an invitation. He...he thought that if I could marry the prince...you, if I could marry you, then we would be able to get out of poverty. He had a plan that I would do whatever I could so you would choose me. I did what I did at that ball so you would want me. He told me to do whatever it took to make sure you would marry me and not one of those rich girls. And when we got married, he knew what he would do next. He planned what happened last night." She wants to hide her face in Vision's chest, stop him from looking at her, but she forces herself to look him in the eye, to finally tell him the truth. "But I swear, I told him I was out. I told him I wouldn't help him kill you. He wanted me to get myself pregnant and have a tighter grasp on the throne and money, but I told him I wouldn't. I supposed I was already pregnant when I told him that, but I didn't plan this. I wouldn't help him hurt you. I'm so, so sorry for what I did." The tears she's been holding back finally spill over when she says, "I understand that this means our marriage is over. I hope you'll be happy with whatever nobleman's daughter you take as your real wife."

Vision gazes at her for a long, silent, suspended moment. Then his hand comes to her cheek, warm against her skin, and his thumb gently swipes a tear away. "I'm not going to marry a nobleman's daughter," he says softly. "Because I already have a wife. And I'm in love with her." He kisses her forehead as a helpless sob tears from her chest, and there's a slight smile on his face when he draws away. "Wanda, I knew."

"You _knew_?!"

"Well, I didn't know that your brother planned to assassinate me," he says. "That was quite the surprise to wake up with a knife to my throat." He tucks her hair behind her ear and continues, "But do you truly think you were the first to offer me sexual favours hoping I'd marry you?"

"I-"

"Oh, you were the boldest, by far," he says, and he almost seems to be enjoying this. "But I'd seen those tactics before. Since I was sixteen, women have been trying to have me choose them. You were the only one I allowed to get close enough to perhaps persuade me." He kisses her, very softly, and says, "But I did not propose to you because of what you did at the ball."

"But...you were at my home," she says, blinking in the brightness of this confession. "You were looking for me."

"You spoke so wistfully of being a merchant's daughter, I wanted to help someone trapped in poverty," he says. "I'd come to offer you a job, working in the offices of a trader I know. But then, when I saw the way your brother treated you, how you flinched when he spoke, I..." He trails off, throat working for a moment. "I made an impulsive decision that the best way to free you was to propose to you. Make you my princess. I thought that, after a few months, we could agree together to have the engagement called off, and I could send you away with money for a new life." He laughs slightly, and says, "How foolish of me to think that I wouldn't fall in love with you."

"You knew all this time?" she asks, and he nods. "Why didn't you just tell me?"

"I was afraid that if I told you I had a plan for how you could leave me, you would do it," he says. "I was falling for you the moment you refused to fall into line for my advisors, darling. When you told me about your past and let me in. I didn't want you to go. I didn't want to lose you."

"So this makes us both liars," she says, and he laughs, a low, soft breath of a sound. "Vision, you have to believe me, I had no idea Pietro still planned to assassinate you. I had nothing to do with it aside from giving him a path to scope out the castle. I was foolish not to warn you sooner."

"Whatever you did before you saw how dangerous he was, Wanda, you protected me," he says, and his eyes are tender and clear. "You risked your life and our child's life to get in his way. I will speak to my parents and tell them I'm sure you were only an unwilling pawn in his plans."

"I want to be part of the plans for him," she says, and Vision's face falls. "What? What is it?"

"I'm afraid my father has put his foot down," he says. "He wants your brother to hang." A horrible swoop goes through her stomach, sour nausea rising in the back of her throat, and he says, "I don't want you to lose the last of your family. But with imprisonment, there is always a chance he will escape. He's proved himself clever. And I will spend the rest of my life fearing for mine and my family's safety if he is free."

"I supposed he...he did plot to assassinate a royal," she says softly. "People have been hanged for less."

"You won't be any part of it," he says. "My mother has a plan. We have friends in the mountains, a doctor who lives in solitude. His house will allow for a guest. While this is happening, for your safety, my parents want you taken there."

"For how long?"

"I believe their plan is for you to stay there until our child is born," he says, and she lowers a protective hand to her bump. "If things calm and you can come back sooner, then you can. But...my father thinks, and I agree, that we will not be able to stop people finding out that it was your brother who tried to kill me. I don't want you in any danger of retribution. If it will protect you, then I will work through the pain of being so far away from you." He's gazing at her with so much love shining in his eyes, and she lets him take her in his arms, falling into a kiss. "And I hope to be back by your side before our child is born."

* * *

The house in the mountains is small and sheltered from the wind that blusters around the peaks. She's taken there by a single servant and a small carriage, with Vision's kiss goodbye and his last breath of, " _I love you_ ," echoing in her ears. She has a small collection of clothing and a stack of books to entertain her in the months awaiting giving birth, and she has her own room in the small house to spread herself across the bed and cry.

She's left mostly to her own devices, unless the doctor who owns the house wants to check on her health. As summer shimmers its haze over the mountains, she starts a small garden outside, her fingers deep in the dark earth and her plants sprouting small and green from the dirt. It gives her a sense of purpose, of being the same girl from the shack. Though everything has changed, she still finds small moments of happiness alone in the garden.

It's been two months, by the doctor's tell, when news is passed along to her that Pietro was hanged for his crimes. The last of her family gone from the world, leaving her truly alone. When the doctor tells her, solemn-faced and sympathetic, she doesn't find it in herself to cry. Her last memory of her brother is his hand at her throat, only put off killing her when she desperately told him she was pregnant. She mourns him, but it's an obliged kind of mourning. The man he became strayed a long way from the brother she remembers from her childhood.

As the summer heat swells, so does her belly. Soon, she has to have new clothes brought to her as her bump grows too big for her dresses, and finds herself tracing the dark stretchmarks on her skin when she lies in bed at night, the windows thrown open to try to keep herself cool. She imagines her child listening to her whisper to them, imagines a little boy with Vision's blue eyes, rests her hand on her belly and thinks of names. She tries not to let it frighten her that she will be a mother in a matter of months. Vision promised to be back by her side before their child is born.

By the time he arrives, summer is turning back to autumn. He's been her husband for almost a year when he turns up at the garden gate, his horse tied up at the fence, and she runs to him to drag his hand to her bump and let him feel their baby kicking. "Isn't it strange?" she asks, feeling the absurd hysterical urge to laugh.

"I'm sorry to miss so much," he says, and he's admiring her, his hands never straying from her bump when he leans down to kiss her. She kisses him back, falling into him, the words she hasn't yet said glowing golden in her mind, almost on her lips. He breaks away from their embrace first, still stroking her hair, and whispers, "I'm staying. I won't leave you alone."

And stay he does. He stays through nights when she's too uncomfortable to sleep, telling her stories until exhaustion finally takes her. He stays to rub her aching feet and back, to help her bathe when she feels impossibly big, when everything seems a monumental task. He stays when she quietly asks him to tell her about the hanging, and he does. He tells her where Pietro's broken body was buried. Perhaps, in time, she will find it in herself to go and visit him.

When she can no longer bend down, he gardens for her. He dresses her each morning and holds her hand when the doctor tells her she's close to giving birth. He holds her and reassures her when the pain of labour comes, dabbing the sweat from her face, kissing her forehead and promising she's doing perfectly. He's there when their son comes squalling and red-faced into the world, followed a few minutes later by his twin.

She wakes from sleep to find him sat at the foot of her bed, their sons in his arms. Thomas is the older of the two, distinguishable by the slightly different shape of his nose and his loud cries. William is slightly smaller, quieter, and she lifts herself upright and smiles at Vision. He looks back at her and breathes, "You did so well."

"I wish I'd known I was expecting twins," she says, and he laughs softly. They do everything softly, loathe to wake their sleeping sons. Wistfulness mists her words and tears mist her eyes when she quietly says, "I have a family again."

"I want to start over," he says, and she reaches for their children, takes William into her arms. He's warm and soft and even in sleep nuzzles against her, and the love for her children almost overwhelms her. Vision gazes at her with a gaze full of compassion, full of pride, full of the love he kept whispering to her while she whimpered in the throes of labour, and he says, "No more lies."

"No more lies," she repeats, a promise more sacred than the wedding vows they made a year ago. Then she looks up at her husband, the elder of their children cradled in his arms, and finally speaks the glowing, gilded words she's held inside her for months. "I love you, Vision."

Vision looks up at her, his eyes bright, and leans across their children to kiss her and whisper a promise into her lips.

"I love you too. Always, my lady."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler warnings: attempted murder, pregnancy, character death through hanging


End file.
